1. LIFE:Literacy Influences Future Excellence Presented by Dee Acklie, PhD Carlow College Roundtable May 2007

2. Poverty Rate in United States More than 23 million people live below the poverty thresholds. This estimate includes over 5 million children. Poverty costs the United States over 13 billion in future economic outcomes. For every $1 invested in quality early education programs $13 can be saved in special education costs,welfare, prison and and mental Health care (Schweinhart, 2006)

3. Why Poverty Matters

4. Long term Impacts Adults are reading less. Less than 5% of the population reads for pleasure (Angelotti 1992). Graves (1990) indicates that “reading, like writing, requires some discipline if your aren’t used to it. Most people don’t read. A very small part of our population, about 3% buys 95% of the books sold in bookstores.”

5. LIFE Gap Bridges the

6. Components of LIFE LIFE Book Clubs LIFE Tutoring

7. LIFE Book Clubs After school Program at Girls Inc for girls age 12-18 Pre-service teachers from the College of Saint Mary commit to 20 hours of Service Learning over 6 or 10 weeks. Pre-service teachers are trained in literacy methodologies. Books are selected. Lessons are planned and carried out.

8. Elementary School Tutoring Program Inner City school selected Pre-service teachers commit to 80 hours of service learning over a 2 semester time frame. Pre-service teachers were trained in literacy methods and evaluation. Pre-service teachers work in classrooms tutoring individuals and small groups of children.

9. Evaluation-LIFE Book Clubs Pre-service teachers journals Documentation of projects through writing samples and photos. End of project evaluation by girls enrolled and pre-service teachers.

10. Evaluation-LIFE Tutoring Pre-service teachers journals Documentations of children’s work through work samples. A Case Study built on one child’s progress. Final reflection of learning by pre- service and classroom teachers.

11. Outcomes

12. Looking back over the past few months, I have noticed my own confidence level rise because of the positive experience with my case study. My goal as a future teacher is to not loose sight of the big picture, educating students by stimulation and engaged learning and get lost in the pressure for all my students to pass“the test.”

13. Taking just ten to fifteen minutes a day and focusing in on the needs of one student’ can make a huge impact into their learning.

14. Educators must be flexible, encouraging literacy. Literacy can be the most valuable resource a person obtains in order to be successful in life.

15. After being at (School name) I have gained many different things. I have learned to understand differences not only in SES, but also race or culture and learning differences.

16. Children’s gains Phonemic Awareness Knowledge of phonics patterns Sight word recognition Prosody Guided Reading and Grade level reading Writing formats and sentence construction.

17. LIFE Book Clubs