Putting the ABCs Into Practice

The Pint-Size Pair With Athlete-Mentors to Improve Reading

It wasn't yet 3:30 p.m., but the kids could hardly contain themselves.

"Where's my mentor?" asked one boy.

Another ran up, glanced at the library door and said, "Where are the players?"

They didn't have long to wait. A minute later the door of the Tuckahoe Elementary School library burst open, and 15 tall, lanky teenagers spilled in, all baggy jeans and shaggy hair.

The children's eyes widened.

Quickly pairing up with the second- to fifth-graders, the young men draped themselves over couches and small chairs and launched into a task that goes hand-in-hand with being a member of Washington-Lee High School's varsity basketball team.

"They are wid -- uh . . ." said Austin Park, 8, reading "The Heavy Hippo." He paused.

"Wider," prompted David McNally, 18, a senior with a goatee and floppy red hair.

"Wider than my arm," said Austin, completing the sentence.

"See, it's wider," McNally said. "So it's like, more wide."

Around the room, similar scenes were unfolding as the students completed the sixth session of the 15-week Readers Are Leaders program, which brings high school athletes into elementary schools as mentors and role models.

Started three years ago by Wendell Byrd, a Fairfax County basketball coach and retired second-grade teacher, the program spread from Fairfax this year. In Arlington, the Washington-Lee varsity basketball team tutors children once a week in Tuckahoe's extended-day program. In Alexandria, T.C. Williams High School basketball players (varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams) are spending 18 weeks mentoring students at three elementary schools -- Maury, Jefferson-Houston and Cora Kelley.