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Education
Reform
Albuquerque Reads
To sign up as a volunteer, download
a form to fax or mail back by
clicking here.
Or
click here to download an electronic form to email back.
To find out more about being a tutor, download
a brochure by
clicking here.
To find out more about being a sponsor, download
a brochure by
clicking here.
To view an informational video about Albuquerque Reads
click here.
To view our latest newsletter,
click here.
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PROGRAM
SPONSORS!
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.
Ms. Idle is now the Instructional Manager for APS Teaching &
Learning Systems.
Sally and Jo Ann along with Lynda Idle have
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 semester 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 800 more 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 below 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 all 17-20 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.
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us a message!
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