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.