How Intergenerational Reading Builds Connection for Senior Living Residents and Students

Once a month, residents at Monarch Landing in Naperville, Illinois, board a bus and travel to nearby Cowlishaw Elementary School. There, they participate in Rockin’ Readers, a one-to-one volunteer read-aloud program that pairs residents with students from kindergarten through fourth grade.

The sessions are about much more than building literacy skills. As residents and students read and talk together, they develop meaningful connections. Students gain confidence, while residents have an opportunity to share their time and experience with a younger generation.

Margaret Dalke, life enrichment manager at Monarch Landing, describes the Rockin’ Readers program as transformative, noting that it has become an activity that many residents look forward to each month.

Read on to discover how Rockin’ Readers brings generations together, benefits residents and students, and how other senior care communities can create similar programs.

How the Program Began

Monarch Landing Associate Executive Director Kelli Cox first started the program while working at another senior living community. Cox and Dalke worked together at that community, and when they later found themselves working together at Monarch Landing, they decided to launch the program again.

Margaret Dalke, life enrichment manager at Monarch Landing

When Cox developed the original reading program, she reached out to schools in the area with the goal of creating an intergenerational relationship. Cox and Dalke had previously explored opportunities for residents to volunteer at daycares, but those arrangements required residents to meet a complex set of parameters.

One school responded to Cox’s outreach with an idea: Residents could meet individually with students who needed extra reading practice and one-on-one support. The arrangement also offered an opportunity to create relationships that might otherwise be missing from residents’ and students’ lives. “A lot of students also don’t have grandparents living or around in the same state, and some residents don’t have grandchildren,” explains Dalke, noting that the fit seemed natural.

When Cox and Dalke launched Rockin’ Readers at Monarch Landing, they needed to find a new school partner. A teacher who had helped establish the previous program provided an unexpected connection. Her parents were moving into a senior living community, and she wanted to keep her class connected with older adults, so she connected Monarch Landing with another school.

The process of establishing the new partnership was relatively smooth. The biggest challenge was finding a day and time that worked for Monarch Landing residents because many already had busy schedules and active lifestyles.

How the Rockin’ Readers Program Works

Left to right: Jerry Horan, resident; Francesca Dannewitz, life enrichment coordinator at Monarch Landing; Virginia Hart, resident; Suzanne Sampon, resident; Carole O’Connor, resident

Launched in 2021, Rockin’ Readers runs throughout the school year, beginning each September. Once a month, participating residents board a bus to Cowlishaw Elementary School. Before each visit, Dalke lets the teacher know how many residents will attend, and the teacher identifies students who could benefit from additional reading time or practice.

Each resident is paired with a student, although those pairings may change from one visit to the next. On average, 10 to 12 residents participate in each session.

The program appeals to residents for different reasons, including the opportunity to reconnect with experiences from earlier in their lives. “We have a lot of residents who are retired teachers, and this gives them the memories of working in the classroom,” says Dalke. “We also have residents who enjoy being around kids.”

Reading is at the center of each visit, but the sessions also give residents and students time to get to know each other. Students talk with residents about their lives and what they did over the weekend. They arrive with a box of books appropriate for their reading levels, then read with residents before rotating to another partner.

How Residents and Students Benefit From the Program

Rockin’ Readers gives residents a meaningful way to contribute to the greater community while creating connections with a younger generation. The program can be particularly valuable for residents who want to volunteer but may not be able to participate in more physically demanding activities. “Sometimes volunteer projects require a lot of physical effort, and this is geared toward residents who aren’t as mobile,” Dalke explains.

One resident in her mid-nineties regularly attended Rockin’ Readers sessions and found a strong sense of purpose through her participation. “She felt accomplished, like she was giving back, and it just put such a smile on her face,” says Dalke.

The benefits extend to the students, too. Some children are timid at the beginning of a session, but Dalke has watched them gradually become more comfortable and open up. For students who don’t have grandparents nearby, spending time with older adults may initially feel unfamiliar or even intimidating.

Those interactions can help children become more comfortable connecting with people from different generations. “I think the sessions make the kids feel more comfortable with older adults and developing different relationships,” she says. “There are many generations separating kindergarteners and 97-year-olds, and when you hear the residents telling the students they didn’t have phones and computers when they were young, the students’ eyes are bulging. They lived in such a different time.”

For residents, leaving the community to spend time with students also creates opportunities for greater social connection. Rather than interacting only with the people they see each day at Monarch Landing, residents become part of the broader community and develop relationships outside of senior living. “I think it’s really helped combat isolation and depression,” Dalke says.

How Senior Care Facilities Can Build Similar Partnerships

Senior care communities have many opportunities to help residents connect with people beyond their campuses, and local schools can be valuable partners. Schools may be interested in a program similar to Rockin’ Readers but might not know how to initiate the relationship. Reaching out directly and explaining the goal of creating an intergenerational reading program can help get the conversation started.

Social media can also help senior care communities build relationships with people in their surrounding neighborhoods. When Monarch Landing needed replacement controls for a resident Wii bowling group, the community turned to social media because the controls were no longer available for sale. After Monarch Landing posted that some of its controls had broken, community members responded, and the community now has 12 backup controls. “A lot of those neighborhood groups are a great way to stay connected,” says Dalke.

Looking ahead, Dalke hopes Rockin’ Readers will continue to grow as new residents join Monarch Landing. Greater resident participation would allow the program to reach even more children at the school. “We’re getting a lot of residents moving in all the time, so I hope more residents are willing to try it,” she says. “The more residents we have, the more students who can participate.”

Paige Cerulli

Paige Cerulli is a contributing writer to i Advance Senior Care.