IUK educationmajor Linda Fitzsimmons, right, tutors youngsters at Washington Elementary School in Kokomo as part of the America Reads program.
Photo by David F. Nelson
According to literacy studies, the average Central Indiana resident reads at only a sixth-grade level. Astonishing as that number may be there are other literacy statistics even more shocking.
That is why two programs -- one federal and the other state -- are partnering with IU Kokomo and area public schools to battle these kinds of staggering numbers.
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IUK educationmajor Linda Fitzsimmons, right, tutors youngsters at Washington Elementary School in Kokomo as part of the America Reads program. Photo by David F. Nelson
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The federal program, America Reads, grew from a new Clinton administration initiative aimed at helping elementary school youngsters become better readers.
The state program, Twenty-First Century Scholars, is an early intervention/scholarship initiative that seeks to encourage young people to stay on track in high school, graduate and then go on to college. IUK is a regional Scholars site, serving youth from Cass, Howard, Miami and Tipton counties.
Operating with funding from both programs, IUK is working with area public schools to confront reading problems at two stages -- first, when children are just getting started with reading, and again in high school, with students whose reading is below grade level.
Using dollars available to the federal work-study program through America Reads, IUK this fall has placed a cadre of university students in area elementary schools to provide personal tutoring to youngsters who, by second grade, have already hit reading snags. The tutors, most of them education majors, are trained by IUK instructors to work with youngsters one-on-one several times a week, either listening to a child read or reading to them.
A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education found children whose parents read to them are much better prepared for school and perform significantly better in school than those who have not been exposed to reading.
"And you'll find that IUK's students working in the schools enjoy reading -- probably because their parents read to them when they were young," says Catherine Barnes, IUK's director for Campus Climate, who is helping coordinate the program.
IUK alumna Nancy Carey, director of elementary and middle schools for Kokomo-Center Township Schools, says the school system is excited about the partnering opportunity. "This is truly a win-win situation because our elementary students become better readers, and we hope to help IUK students as they train to become teachers."
Now in her junior year as an IUK education major, Linda Fitzsimmons says the America Reads project has presented an invaluable opportunity. "For an undergraduate to be able to get this experience is wonderful. The experience is great, but so, too, are these children. They are precious."
Not all of the student tutors are education majors, however. Some are business students who simply love sharing the world of reading.
And because the love of literature is never too late to nurture, IUK's Twenty-First Century Scholars site this fall launched a new project to help make an impact on reading skills during the critical formative years of a student's high school career.
Conceived by Mary King, who directs IUK's early intervention programs, the project is designed for tenth and eleventh graders who are reading below grade level. To participate, students must be enrolled in a Kokomo high school and be in the Twenty-First Century Scholars Program.
IUK became a support site for Twenty-First Century Scholars last January. In July, the campus received a $141, 605 grant to extend services and to hire additional AmeriCorps staff to deliver program services. These include mentoring, skills workshops, tutoring, and social and cultural learning opportunities.
In the Scholars reading program, participants meet at least twice a week with an IUK student instructor, and reading progress is measured through standard and nonstandard pre- and post-tests.
"Scholars may come to us reading below a fifth or sixth grade level, but after the program they will be reading above a twelfth grade level," King says.
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