Texas A&M University Reads and Counts program aims to decrease illiteracy in BCS children

A recent report found that 37 percent of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifetime learning. In a 2005 study, researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston found that children need to develop skills at home before they enter school.

According to a report published by the Educational Testing Service in New Jersey, children who enter school not understanding basic reading and writing are already behind many of their peers. Researchers there found that children who are not on the same level as their classmates struggle to catch up and continue lagging behind, leading to drop outs.

Middle school literacy

When students continue through school with low-level reading and writing skills, they struggle through all subjects. Allie Megahan, an associate teacher at Davila Middle School in Bryan and a Texas A&M University graduate student pursuing a master’s in curriculum and instruction, said that reading skills factor significantly in the success of the students she interacts with.

“I think it makes a huge difference,” Megahan said.

Megahan works primarily with eighth grade students. She said many of the students she works with struggle in their classes because of poor reading skills, due in some cases to English not being their primary language. She referred to those students as ELLs, meaning English language learners.

Megahan said she found that reading skills, or lack thereof, factor in more significantly with ELLs. Even in math classes, Megahan said they dedicate portions of class time to learning vocabulary words.

Because of their poor reading abilities, Megahan said they have found that oral exams gauge the students’ learning much more accurately than written exams, especially with the ELL students.

“For a lot of them, that makes a huge difference,” Megahan said. “You’ll see their grade go from a 50 to an 80 just by having their test read to them. Just because they can’t read it.”

However, Megahan said that oral exams fail to provide solutions to illiteracy. She explained that the oral exams accommodate students and accurately gauge their level of understanding of the materials, but the students’ reading skills do not improve without reading on their own.

Elementary school literacy

The Texas A&M Reads and Counts Program, however, aims to provide elementary students with one-on-one help to improve literacy. Through this program, 200 current Texas A&M students are employed by Texas A&M to work in 26 locations in Bryan and College Station.

The tutors help students by working with them one-on-one or in small groups. In schools, the tutors focus on the students’ reading and math skills. At the after-school programs where some of the tutors work, they help the students with homework and other educational activities.

Stephanie Linder oversees the Reads and Counts programs as the program manager. Before working with the Reads and Counts program, Linder taught for 17 years. The subjects she taught include special education in which she taught almost all classes, reading, fifth grade math and more.

Linder said her favorite part of the year became when Texas A&M assigned a new student teacher or methods student to her classroom.

“It got to be that one of my favorite things of the semester was getting my new A&M student and being able to mentor them, teach them and share what I’ve learned over 17 years with them,” Linder said.

Linder said that the biggest detriment to children learning how to read is not having people reading to them at home.

“They don’t have that individual attention that other kids get, where their parents read to them every night and have books available at their house,” Linder said.

The Reads and Counts program aims to provide that one-on-one attention to students.

“That’s our hope, that we can go in and aid those teachers,” Linder said. “We come alongside them and pull those kids and read to them, read together.”

One of Linder’s goals for the program is to provide books at home for students through an annual book drive. The tutors and other volunteers canvas neighborhoods for book donations. They distribute the books to children in schools for them to take home and keep.

The book drive is scheduled for Dec. 2 this year. A box will be available to collect donations in the Reads and Counts Program office in 102 Heaton Hall.

Whether five or 50, every person lives with the right to literacy. The ability to read and write equates to many more opportunities throughout life. For more information about literacy in the US, visit this website https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/literacy.asp.