I will find out when we are allowing volunteers into our schools as we would love to have you. 🙂
–School Principal, February 11, 2021
This is the response I received from a middle school principal after asking if I could help with reading development at her school recently. Children have been out of their traditional classroom setting for almost a year now. Has the volunteering game changed too? I can substitute at a school, but I cannot volunteer at one.
Years ago, before becoming a full time high school teacher, I volunteered at a middle school in Loveland two days a week. I worked exclusively with four students, identified by a teacher, who were behind in their reading development. I tested them on their ability to recognize sight words, brought in materials for them to make their own flash cards, and brought in fun reading materials, like Shel Silverstein poetry, to read out loud with me. We worked one-on-one and we saw results.
Literacy has always been a passion of mine. My thinking is that if you can read well you can do anything.
“According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only about one-third of our nation’s fourth graders can read proficiently. Once students start to fall behind in reading, they tend to fall faster and further behind their peers with each year.
Nationwide, only 21 percent of students experiencing poverty, and 35 percent of students overall, are reading proficiently by the fourth grade (as reported by 2019 NAEP results). These numbers have not changed significantly in the past 15 years.” (Quotes taken from the readingpartners.org website.)
After receiving my teaching license and then my principal license, I began to see the greater affect of illiteracy on young people. One semester as a high school teacher, I was assigned to supervise a credit recovery class. The students were expected to make up credits they were missing by logging in to a website. This website offered online classes and assignments the students needed to complete to receive the missing credit. No teacher instruction was given.
I noticed one older student, recently released from juvenile detention, not logging in. He was just sitting with his head down, looking apathetic to the whole idea of credit recovery. When I asked him to join me in the hall, where I conferenced many students over the years, he came willingly. I asked him why he wasn’t logging in. He said it was because he could not read to complete any work so why bother. My jaw dropped. I told him I would see what I could do.
I met with the school principal who said there was really nothing that could be done. This was high school and we just don’t teach reading here.
That haunting memory returned a week or so ago, so I reached out to a local middle school to offer my help. Due to the COVID-19 virus volunteering has changed.
While I was hoping and praying I could once again help a few students struggling with literacy before they attend high school, I was given the same answer that young man I encountered in credit recovery received. Sorry, not today.
More than 60% of American 4th graders are not proficient readers.
75% of children who read poorly at age 9 will struggle to read for the rest of their lives.
85% of children in the juvenile court system are not literate.