READING: PROGRAM GIVES HELP TO KIDS WITH PROBLEMS

First-graders having trouble learning to read get a second chance through a program called Reading Recovery, now in its second year in Southeast Missouri.

The initial year proved successful, said Marlene Miller, coordinator of the Reading Recovery program at Southeast Missouri State University, and more teachers are in training this year as the program spreads.

Reading Recovery targets the lowest 20 percent of readers in the first grade. Specially trained teachers work one-on-one with the children to help them catch up with their classmates.

Last year the program was initiated in Cape Girardeau, Chaffee, New Madrid, and Anna, Ill.

"Last year we served a total of 96 students and trained 13 teachers," Miller said. "We had 66 program children, those who received 60 lessons or more, and discontinued 50 of them. That is a 76 percent discontinuance rate."

Children are discontinued from the program when they reach the average reading level of their peers.

For a training year, Miller said, a 76 percent discontinuance rate is very good.

When teachers are fully trained, she said, the rate goes up. The national rate is just above 80 percent.

Twenty new Reading Recovery teachers are being trained this year. New schools initiating Reading Recovery this year are Advance, Sikeston, Poplar Bluff, Perryville, Jackson, Oak Ridge, North County in Bonne Terre, South Iron, Fredericktown, Bloomfield, and Meridian, Ill.

Two teacher-leaders are being trained this year also, one from Webster Groves in St. Louis and one from Cape Girardeau.

Miller said schools in Southeast Missouri have an advantage because the training site is close to home. It takes a year for a teacher to be trained.

"I believe Southeast Missouri will continue to grow," Miller said. "But we need to get more people involved in the state.

"There is a lot of interest in other parts of the state, but because of the economy districts can't afford to send a teacher-leader away for a year."

Currently 48 states and five foreign countries are involved in Reading Recovery.

Miller is one of just 20 teacher- leader trainers in the country. University personnel working with her are Jeanine Dobbins, teacher leader; Nikki Murdick, site coordinator; and Gina Glaus, student assistant.

"The program works," Miller said. "It's different than other reading programs we've been used to.

"They are not learning individual items, not memorizing blends or learning to recognize sounds," Miller said. "Those techniques never take them back to the context."

The program teaches children reading strategies. "So when they get in trouble with reading, they know what to do instead of looking to the teacher for help," Miller said. "We teach the child how to be independent."

Although she is trainer of teacher leaders, Miller is still teaching children.

Another part of the Reading Recovery guidelines are that all teachers and leaders and trainers must work with children.

"How can you describe the experiences without having the experiences?" she said. "I do what I expect my teacher to do."

This year Miller is working at St. Vincent de Paul Grade School.

"It's amazing, truly amazing, to watch these children," she said. "In just the second lesson I can see the student I'm working with growing and learning right in front of me."

Another key part of Reading Recovery is that even when training is complete teachers keep in contact with their trainers. "We keep on learning and evaluating to keep the program pure," Miller said.

"I've been a professor for a long time. I would teach people things in classes and then never see them again. You don't know how the program changes. We want to keep this program true.

"We are attempting to follow the children as they go through school," Miller said.

Miller said she checked on one student she taught last year. The child's classroom teacher was surprised to learn the youngster had been in Reading Recovery, telling Miller the child was one of the best readers in the class.

"I think that's success."