Helping Our Schools Increase Literary Skills: Part 7

Helping Our Schools by Increasing Literacy – Triggering an Epidemic

Mary had a plan

She got the principal’s and the parent’s permission to do the reading screening from the website with the school’s students.
She got her book club to give up a session and to spend a day listening to the children do the reading screening.
Of the 243 students in K-8, 97 made more than 4 errors on the simple reading the screening for their grade level.
11 students were in the first grade and 12 were in the eighth grade.
Mrs Ingram, the special education teacher got permission from the principal to have volunteers come into the school to teach as many children as possible.
The Principal asked that they concentrate on 2 classes; the First Grade students and the eighth graders leaving for high school.
To help 97 students, she needed $3,000 for instructor manuals and student materials
She approached her PTA group and got $250.00
She went to her University Women’s Group and got another $250.00
Her bridge club raised $400.00 with a dessert bridge.
Her local Rotary club contributed $500.00 as did her Realty company. With $1,700.00, she had enough to start.
Now she needed as many volunteers as she could find to go to the school to tutor kids.
Two of her book club members signed up, as well as three from her University Women’s club, two Rotarians and three realtors.
She approached the high school and got six senior students who needed a community placement as part of their graduation requirements.
Each volunteer did the Internet training and met at the school at an after-school meeting to discuss the project with Mary, the principal and some of the teachers.
Each volunteer was assigned one student and was assigned as a backup for another student.
Teams of two volunteer tutors monitored each other’s students progress and watched each other tutor at least once a month.
The principal had each of the 17 students tested with a standardized test before they began their tutoring program.
The program finally got launched the day before Halloween.
Mary did a newspaper interview and was interviewed by the local radio and cable TV station.
By the end of the school year, all 12 student’s showed significant gains.
Mary made presentations to all of the sponsors and all of the media, The project was featured in a regional magazine and on several radio and TV stations as news items.