May 1998 Lab to Take Lead in Reading Initiatives
Young children across the United States soon will have an army of allies to help them master the reading skills vital to their success in school and beyond. A pair of related national initiatives—the America Reads Challenge and the LEARNS Partnership—are spearheading the training of thousands of tutors through local reading and literacy projects operated by schools and community agencies. The Northwest Laboratory, supported by the U.S. Department of Education and the Corporation for National Service, is taking a leadership role in launching and coordinating tutor-training efforts nationwide.
"These important national initiatives are very large, complex undertakings to mobilize resources across the nation to reach the goal of ensuring that all children become strong, independent readers by the end of third grade," says Dr. Ethel Simon-McWilliams, Executive Director for the Northwest Laboratory. "The Laboratory’s role—expediting and coordinating collaboration among the many federal, regional, and local agencies and organizations involved in these efforts—will assist in ensuring maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the programs."
The America Reads Challenge, initiated by the Clinton Administration and currently taking shape in Congress as the Reading Excellence Act, will mobilize a nationwide corps of reading tutors, including college work-study students, to work one-on-one with young readers in schools and community centers. The related initiative, LEARNS (Linking Education and America Reads through National Service), will support the training of reading tutors—as well as other local education projects—at some 2,500 national-service sites around the country. The Southern Regional Council in Atlanta and Bank Street College of Education in New York City will collaborate with NWREL in carrying out the LEARNS work.
Under the direction of Dr. Kay Davis (see "Reading is the Key to the World," Says Volunteer Center Director), the Laboratory’s newly created Community and Education Volunteer Services Center, supported by contracts and grants totaling more than $2 million for the year, will coordinate and oversee a variety of activities. The Education Department-funded activities include:
- Soliciting proposals and awarding contracts to 60 local partnerships of universities, community agencies, and schools across the country to deliver training to local tutors. Three of the partnerships will be awarded in the Northwest region. Each partnership will train 300 tutors.
- Bringing together eight other regional educational laboratories to plan and coordinate regional training conferences in 16 sites across the country this summer and fall. Each two-and-a-half-day conference will address teams of trainers and coordinators from universities with work-study programs, from America Reads Challenge programs, from local AmeriCorps programs, and from other local volunteer tutoring projects. More than 3,000 participants (200 per conference) are expected to attend.
- Developing packets of research- based materials for regional conference participants. The 75-page packets will feature a selection of proven resources useful to local trainers. Included will be annotated bibliographies of resources for reading instruction and tutor training. Services of related organizations and agencies will be identified and described.
- Conducting the Northwest’s regional conference in Seattle in September.
- Producing a three-hour video featuring speakers and other highlights from the Seattle conference. The video will be made available to AmeriCorps lending libraries and to America Reads program trainers, coordinators, and partnership members who are unable to travel to the conference in their region.
- Publishing descriptions of the best tutoring practices for dissemination to America Reads and other tutoring programs. The activities funded by the Corporation for National Service include:
- Designing and delivering up to 95 training events, including: three large, national conferences; a "road show" of literacy trainings in eight cities; a training of trainers that builds on the expertise of peer experts; and customized events in response to requests from locales, states, and regions.
- Producing three training videos and accompanying guides.
- Synthesizing research findings and promising practices in reading and early literacy for dissemination in newsletters, pamphlets, monographs, workshop materials, and on a Web site.
- Creating a Web site of downloadable resources for literacy projects.
- Providing toll-free technical assistance to national service sites in the West, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic states. Assistance may include helping sites find local sources of support for literacy and volunteer program design and implementation.
"The Laboratory will use a national network of recognized peer practitioners, supported by a cadre of expert consultants, to help local programs build capacity for program improvement and improved educational outcomes," says Nancy Henry, who directs the Laboratory’s AmeriCorps Network Northwest project and will lead the new LEARNS initiative. "These new activities represent an evolution of services provided by the Laboratory over the past three years. Many of the sites served through the LEARNS partnership will be targeting early readers. This new work is a perfect fit with NWREL expertise and interest areas."
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