Albuquerque Reads

 

·         To sign up as a volunteer click here

·         Or download a form to fax or mail back by clicking here.

·         Or download an electronic form to email back by clicking here.

·         To find out more about being a tutor, download a Tutor brochure by clicking here.

·         To find out more about being a sponsor or making a contribution, download a Sponsor brochure by clicking here.

·         To view an informational video about Albuquerque Reads click here.

·         To view our latest newsletter, click here.

 

ABOUT THE PROGRAM:

 

Since 1999 the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce has focused on improving the local public education system with a defined focus of higher standards, increased accountability, teacher supports, community connections and common-sense governance.  As a result of our efforts, statewide legislation was passed in House Bill 212 during the 2003 legislative session.  The Chamber is pleased with the progress we have made and supported the passage of the two constitutional amendments on September 23, 2003 which created a Secretary of Education and increased the distribution of the Permanent School fund to raise teacher salaries. It has been noted that you can change a system all you like, but if a child cannot read, the world is closed to them. 

 

Poverty is a strong indicator of a child’s ability to read at an early age.  Children raised in poverty are read to an average of 25 hours TOTAL before they enter kindergarten.  Children from middle to upper level income homes are read to an average of 1000 hours total before they enter kindergarten.  Having access to books, language skills and having good reading skills modeled for students greatly improves their ability to acquire expected literacy levels at an early age.  It is important to help close the gaps of those students coming to school with fewer skills, and get them on a level playing field with their peers.  Studies have shown that if a student is not reading at grade level by the 3rd grade, they will most likely drop out before high school. 

 

Understanding this, the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce has partnered with the Albuquerque Public Schools to create Albuquerque Reads.  Albuquerque Reads has been designed to provide additional support and guidance to kindergarteners who are in their first phase of literacy acquisition.  Early intervention can be very successful in preventing reading difficulties in young children.   Children enter Kindergarten at varying levels of written and oral language skills as well as with varying experiences and learning styles.  “Closing the gap” has been shown to help all students proceed to higher levels of academic success.  Beginning readers need explicit instruction and guided practice to confidently emerge into the world of the written word. Following explicit classroom instruction in reading and writing, tutors in the Albuquerque Reads program will provide the opportunity for the students to practice in an individualized one-on-one setting that can hone in on the specific needs of each and every student.  This can be very powerful!

 

The basic kindergarten literacy curriculum is changed to incorporate tutors from the business community three times a week to support what is being taught in the classroom.  As a result of this partnership, kindergarten teachers have mapped their weekly literacy curriculum and worked directly with a literacy expert to design materials that will support the classroom learning.  Tutors are trained to deliver the lessons to the students as a supplement to the classroom activity.  Materials have been developed by long time educators at Bel-Air Elementary School, Sally Giannini, a teacher with 26 years of experience with an A-3 Instructional Leader license and Early Childhood license; and Jo Ann Takemoto, a Mentor Teacher and Master Teacher with more than 20 years of experience. Former Bel Air Principal Lynda Idle has been an educator for 17 years during which she has been a teacher and a principal in both Texas and New Mexico. Her BS degrees are in Elementary Educations K- 8th and Reading Instruction K-8th from Univ. of Texas and her MS is in Educational Administration from UNM.  Sally, Jo Ann, and  Lynda Idle developed the tutoring curriculum, and training materials to align with Kindergarten reading standards and classroom instruction. 

 

Albuquerque businesses are asked to identify employees who would be willing to commit approximately one hour each week for a school year to tutor Kindergarten students.  The first year of the Albuquerque Reads program was conducted at Bel-Air Elementary School.  The results have been outstanding.  In August of 2003, 98% of the students entered kindergarten with little to no reading skills.  With the support of the Albuquerque Reads program, as of April 2004, 53% are above kindergarten reading level and 24% are at kindergarten reading level - a total of 77% at and above reading level!  Other factors affecting the results were 14% were new students, 23% were ESL students, 12% were monolingual students, and 51% were English speaking.    The program has expanded to include Bel-Air Elementary, Atrisco Elementary, and Wherry Elementary.  We anticipate needing over 600 volunteers to tutor kindergarteners three times a week at each of the schools.  Employees will need to attend a three hour training session prior to the tutoring.  Several options of training sessions will be available.  For the hour session, each tutor will work with two students; one student for the first 30 minutes, and another student for the second half hour.  During the 30 minute tutoring session, the tutor will work with the student on reading, writing and skill development which is aligned to the student’s abilities and the current classroom curriculum. 

 

Tutoring times are scheduled for Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays of each week between the hours of  8:45 am and 12pm, varying by school (see sign up forms for your school of interest).  Once each tutor arrives, they will receive 10 minutes of daily instruction from the program coordinator and then proceed to tutoring their first student for 30 minutes, then transition to their second student and tutor again for another 30 minutes.  It is imperative that tutors attend each tutoring session so students are not left out of the tutoring experience.  The students need the consistent one-on-one reading practice that the Albuquerque Reads program provides, so it is important that the tutors show up weekly.  Understanding the challenge for business people to commit a regular hour each week, companies are encouraged to find teams to cover weekly sessions, or substitutes who will be trained and can fill in when the regularly scheduled tutor is out or unavailable for the tutoring session.   

 

A seven year plan has been developed to initiate the Albuquerque Reads Program.  Initially, the Chamber worked with Bel Air Elementary School as the first school identified with more than 85% of its student population receiving free or reduced lunch.  APS identified 2 more schools to which began the program in fall of 2004, and plans to expand to APS schools that have 85% or more of students receiving free or reduced lunch. 

 

The Albuquerque Reads program is modeled from a similar program in Columbus, Ohio, called Columbus Reads.  The program was so successful that the Governor of Ohio initiated statewide funding grants to be available for all schools to initiate this program.  High poverty schools utilized the program to help students pass the statewide Fourth Grade proficiency test.  Fourth grade reading proficiency results in Kent City, Ohio increased from 73% to 93% after implementing the Reads program.  Tecumseh Schools reported that students having been tutored was cause for 90% of the fourth graders to be rated as proficient in reading.  Ohio Valley schools reported that 68% of tutored students improved their reading by one grade level, and 23% improved two grade levels. 

 

The materials created by Bel Air have been designed to replicate easily for turnkey expansion to other schools in the district.  The materials have been aligned with the district Kindergarten Benchmarks and the kindergarten weekly curriculum which works to teach students in order to meet those standards.