Glen Ellyn music program promotes literacy in kids

Consider Autumn Voakes' appearance at the Glen Ellyn Public Library her informal introduction to the children of the Western suburbs.

Although she has been chief financial officer and executive director of the Hinsdale- and St. Charles-based nonprofit American Music Institute since 2006, she will debut a music program aimed at promoting literacy to children 3 to 6 years old. It will be the first of several appearances in the coming months at libraries throughout DuPage County.

"We want to get into all of the communities," Voakes said of the institute's literacy program. "This is going down another route, promoting literacy by using something they really love."

Voakes' will conduct her "Stories & Music" program at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 3, in the Youth Program Room at the Glen Ellyn Public Library. She said she hopes to take the program into Downers Grove and Addison in the summer and fall.

She said music offers a chance for children to gain important skills that will be used as they develop.

"Children both with typical learning curves and those with developmental delays gain more sophisticated motor and cognitive skills," Voakes said. "Even if they leave music, those skill sets tend to stay with them."

The exercises offered to children give them the chance to participate in storytelling, often using singing and nursery rhymes.

They are exercises Voakes said she hopes parents take to use at home.

"Children are able to connect more if listening to a story and being actively engaged," Voakes said. "They might incorporate a book or story with music as they are reading it."

The institute is funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities as well as donations. It also charges tuition for private classes.

As elementary and middle school programs face the ax under budget constraints, Voakes said it's increasingly important for organizations such as AMI to continue to promote the arts. Some of the organization's volunteer teachers come from these now-defunct programs.

"The children will not have the exposure at the schools anymore," Voakes said. "Where are they going to get it? It's become even more important for grassroots and nonprofits to promote that."