JEANINE DOBBINS EARNS TEACHING AWARD

Missouri educator Jeanine Larson Dobbins of Cape Girardeau recently received a Teacher Leader Award from the Reading Recovery Council of North America.

Dobbins received the award for her work with the Reading Recovery program in Missouri. She was one of two recipients of the award, presented at the Reading Recovery Teacher Leader Institute in San Diego, Calif.

The Reading Recovery program involves more than 19,000 educators in the United States and thousands more who are advocates for the program in North America.

Reading Recovery involves one-on-one tutoring for first-graders having trouble learning to read and write.

Individual students receive a half-hour lesson each school day for 12 to 20 weeks.

Dobbins coordinates the Missouri Statewide Early Literacy Intervention Program, administered through Southeast Missouri State University. Her husband, Dr. Ken Dobbins, is president of the school.

Jeanine Dobbins pushed for state funding for the literacy program. The state has provided $1.75 million for literacy program training for teachers in the past four years, Dobbins said.

Thirty-six percent of the state's school districts currently offer Reading Recovery one-on-one instruction for the lowest performing first-graders.