It was a busy summer at The Reading Window with lots of students, three tutors, and an uncooperative air-conditioning. Our 10-week summer session included ten students who logged a total of 355 hours. It’s encouraging to have received enough funds, through grants and personal donations, to provide almost 55 percent of tuition as scholarships.

Students were given an extra chance to shine with a formal graduation ceremony. The children who finished the summer program read books they had mastered, heard praise from tutors, enjoyed dessert with family members in attendance, got gift certificates from The New Dominion Bookshop, and received their certificates of achievement.

At eh beginning of the summer, one parent told us a story about her child standing in front of an assembly, unable to read the story he wrote for his class presentation. This was an awful experience for the child and his parent. So when he read some paragraphs from Harry Potter at graduation, his mother was practically glowing.

While there was a lot of fun at the school this summer, it was the hard work and dedication, by our tutors, students and their parents, that made the process of reading more accessible. For those students who have moved on, we hope for their continued success in school and in life.

Hands on Reading: Keep it Real for Young Readers

Oftentimes, we find that our students consider reading an academic exercise, unrelated to “real life.” At The Reading Window, we employ a variety of techniques to change this perception and to make reading more enjoyable and relevant. We try to give children a choice of reading materials on topics of interest to them. Then, we bring in unfamiliar objects mentioned or shown in the book, so students can experience them first hand.

During our summer session, a tutor brought in a sample of pyrite crystals for one young man when he came across references to “fool’s gold” in a story about the Gold Rush, a banjo for him to play because he did not recognize the instrument in an illustration of wagon train travel, and a small terrarium planted with several types of moss when he had difficulty visualizing a tiger sleeping on a mossy bank by the river. This method of building vocabulary excites and delights learners.

We would encourage you to watch for similar opportunities to enrich young readers’ experiences of the world and to increase their appreciation of the written word. For example, if a story about Red Riding Hood show Grandma crocheting a doily, why not get your child a crochet hook and some colorful yarn and show her how (or find a friend or relative who can)? If she likes to crochet, you could take her to the library to look for a book with pictures of and instructions for some crochet projects. In this way, your child will learn that books are a good source of creative ideas and useful information.

Fluvanna Commute Proves Worthwhile

Last spring we had our first student from Fluvanna enroll in our program. After failing grades and several suspensions due to disciplinary problems, a mentor from H.O.P.E. Mentor Services was enlisted to help the 7th grader get back on track. The Fluvanna County school system agreed to pay half of the tuition for his first session at the Reading Window, and H.O.P.E. education specialist Bobbi Johnson committed to both transporting him and participating in the tutoring.

When he started, AC was reading at a second grade leve, which meant he was barely reading. Finding books near his reading level that would hold the interest of a 7th grader proved to be a challenge. Fortunately, with help from a Louisa librarian, a selection of beginning reader books written for adults were assembled for AC to choose from. Two veteran tutors, Heather Haines and Reading Window creator Piper Martin, worked daily to improve AC’s skills and boost his reading confidence.

Fluvanna administrators were so impressed with AC’s progress in his first 6-week Reading Window session that they decided to pay full tuition for his second session.

“Through the partnership between Ms. Martin and Ms. Johnson… this client has shown remarkable improvement in grades and behavior,” says Rick Waugh Jr., Director of H.O.P.E. “This program has renewed motivation in improving his reading skills, thus allowing him to stay out of trouble in school as he can better understand his school work.”

Grants and Donations Sponsor Many Students

So far we’ve had enough funds from donors to provide almost 55 percent of tuition as scholarships, helping us in our goal to teach children who are struggling to read regardless of their financial situation. We’d like to extend a big thanks to The Bama Works Foundation, CVS, Wal-Mart, and The Watterson Foundation for their valuable contributions. We are also grateful to New Dominion Bookshop for providing gift certificates to all our summer session graduates.

Our New Tutor

We’re happy to welcome aboard Ben Campbell who began tutoring, writing grants, and working on program development and outreach this summer. The favorite thing he has done so fas was organize the graduation. “It was the best reward for tutoring I could think of getting to see a roomful of parents glowing from hearing their children read so well.”

Ben has been involved with children since he was in high school where he coached the boys soccer team for four years and organized a chess club he taught for three years. About working at The Reading Window he says “It’s good to be working with kids again and very rewarding to be teaching such a valuable skill.”

It’s also great to have longtime tutor Heather Haines back with all her experience. She logged many hours this summer and fall helping kids work toward reading at their grade level.

The Reading Window is currently exploring expanding in connection with Louisa County’s LinkAges program.

LinkAges (rhymes with “pink pages”) is a Louisa County program that provides (in several good-sized rooms under one roof) facilities to meet the needs of various age groups — day care for young children; an after-school teen center for 7th, 8th, and 9th graders; an evening program for highschoolers; and two senior citizen programs — and that encourages crossover from each such group to the others (that is to say, it encourages “Linking” of the “Ages”).

The County’s Parks and Recreation director, Ron Basso, who is overseeing all these programs, suggested adding a program for providing individual reading instruction for students of all ages. Now, integrated with the other LinkAges modules and operating in the same building , The Reading Window started a pilot program to accomplish just that.

Recruiting Students and Tutor Trainees

Starting from its long-time core staff of two literacy tutors, The Reading Window has recruited paid tutor trainees who are learning the innovative, proven Reading Window techniques for teaching reading, during the course of helping teach each of two students in a six-week “workshop.” During the six weeks of the intensive training period, each newly hired trainee will work about two hours per day, five days per week. After the six weeks, he/she will be capable of working independently (for more hours, if preferred), bringing “at risk” children in Kindergarten, First, and Second grades up to, or above, average reading abilities, using enjoyable Reading Window games to achieve this. Further training can enlarge the trainee’s repertoire to include techniques for teaching older children. Interested persons living in or near Louisa, Virginia are invited to contact the school, as are potential students. For more information, Contact Piper.

As in the past, preschool children will graduate from the workshop effectively “inoculated” against schoolroom failure for the years to come. In addition, one 7th-grade student is enrolled in the pilot program, and now it may be easier to include more students of varying ages — older children and teenagers who can come to the literacy schold’s center at the LinkAges building after their regular school day, as well as adults, including seniors.

Dates and Location of Pilot Program

The Reading Window’s LinkAges pilot program began Monday, March 3, 2003, at the LinkAges building — the Betty J. Queen community building at 522 Industrial Drive, near the Louisa Airport — and will continue through Friday, April 11, 2003.

Piper Martin, the school’s principal and lead tutor, is excited about the pilot program — you can hear it in her voice as she talks about teaching children and adults to read “with understanding and enjoyment” and as she explains details of the expansion and her plans for “taking it to the next level.”

Recent Community Visioning Meeting

Knowledgeable and forward-thinking community members including former State Senator V. Earl Dickinson attended a January visioning meeting, with brainstorming for the LinkAges connection and future expansion.

Taking It to the Next Level

The visioning meeting helped the school explore ways of expanding the program beyond the central Virginia area. The LinkAges connection is part of the build-up to a statistical research study. The Reading Window is in dialog with the University of Virginia’s Department of Education toward that goal. For the study, there will be eight to ten tutors and a minimum of thirty students, with a control group of the same size.

This is part of Ms. Martin’s dream of adding statistical proof to the voices of scores of grateful families of successful students — with the potential long-term goal of seeing public schools give children their first literacy grounding in this new, better, more effective, more economical, Reading Window way.

Readers Who Wish to Contribute

The Reading Window has recently received an $8000.00 grant from the Bama Works Foundation, which is sufficient (by squeezing the dollars!) for 18 full scholarships or about 25 partial scholarships. Further investments in our children’s future will definitely transform children’s lives — one by one as each scholarship becomes available — then hopefully by the hundreds if/when this technology becomes available in public schools.

Bama Works Foundation was established by the Dave Matthews Band to carry out the band’s commitment to charitable works, both close to home and world wide. Dave Matthews Band has also performed at a number of benefit concerts.

Each time the school reaches another $350 in donations, it can offer a full scholarship to a low-income child (or adult!) on the waiting list — and a person who can read with understanding and enjoyment is much more likely to become a contributing member of society. If donations are generous enough in total, they can also provide sorely-needed transportation and can otherwise facilitate operations.

You may make contributions online using your credit card. Donations of cash and personal checks are appreciated too. Stop by the school (call [540] 872-1999 first, please!), or mail to 103 West St., Louisa, VA 23093. We also seek a donation of a plain paper fax machine. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Other Reading Window Projects

A children’s book for beginners, titled It is Not, written by Ms. Martin as especially for use with Reading Window tutoring techniques, is now ready to download from the school’s website. A book for parents and others to learn how to do the tutoring is well under way. The working title is The Reading Window Way.

New Offers

At the January visioning meeting, during the discussion of possible ways to assist those who cannot come for hands-on training, Earl Cleveland made this offer:

I was invited to a meeting for the Reading Window and enjoyed hearing all the good things you are doing. I suggested to Piper that to help any one interested in using the Window system, a Reading Answers Archive be set up for users to offer their own answers to any problems that might arise for others while using this program. I work for GE and we use an answer service that helps people working on equipment in the field. I think something similar could be done for new users of Reading Window methods. If you would be interested in this input please let me know.

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We ask all readers of this newsletter for other offers and ideas to take the Reading Window technology for reading with enjoyment and understanding — TO THE NEXT LEVEL.