Words on Wheels Rides For Reads Through Miami Valley
By: Roberto De La Rosa-Finch – Online Editor
A bike ride through the neighborhood could make an impact on book deserts in Miami Valley.
The Words on Wheels program will use a bicycle customized by University of Dayton engineering students to distribute reading materials to local children in areas where access to a library is limited, according to a University press release.
According to Karlos Marshall, an academic development coordinator at the Institute of Applied Creativity for Transformation (IACT) at ArtStreet, the bike will allow volunteers to distribute 400 to 500 books at a time.
“We want to create and sustain a literary oasis,” said Marshall, who also founded the nonprofit The Conscious Connect in 2015 to end book deserts in Ohio’s urban cities by 2021.
Poor neighborhoods, which are evident throughout the U.S.–even in big cities like Los Angeles and Washington D.C.–are often accompanied by book deserts.
Kids in these poverty stricken areas lack access to printed materials which result in a deficiency in consistent reading.
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Childhood–and literacy-education researcher at New York University, Susan Neuman, told The Atlantic in July 2016 about the effect these written words have.
“Book reading really provides the words the children need to learn,” said Neuman, who served as the assistant education secretary under George W. Bush.
“Frankly, when you and I talk to our children, we’re talking in a baby-talk-like way—we’re not using sophisticated language. But even a very low-level preschool book like a Dr. Seuss book has more sophisticated vocabulary than oral discourse. So it’s really about the print gap and not the oral-word gap.”
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UD’s School of Engineering’s Innovation Center, which pairs students with real-world clients, provided the modifications for the bike to help close this print gap.
Becky Blust, director of the University’s Innovation Center, said she is grateful for clients like Marshall that allow the Center to run more than 135 projects a year.
“Offering students opportunities to work on design challenges through industry, entrepreneurs as well as the community is part of our mission,” Blust said. “Humanitarian-centered design is an important perspective for professionals to possess.”
Marshall said he hopes to grow his Words on Wheels fleet based on the success of the Innovation Center project.
In 2011, Words on Wheels officially became a nonprofit with a mission to impact the lives and futures of young children through the power of words.
Photo Courtesy of the University of Dayton, (from left) Moses Mbeseha, Karlos Marshall, Matt Forsthoefel, and Gunar Stover