Michigan Reading Association honors the Taylor Reading Corps

Karl Ziomek (left), Armando Sardanopoli and Geno Salomone accept the Michigan Reading Association’s annual statewide award for standout accomplishments in the reading and literacy agency category from MRA President Grace Velchansky. The TRC was awarded during the MRA’s annual winter conference and convention in Grand Rapids earlier this month. The TRC, a non-profit 501(c)(3), recruits, trains and supervises adult reading mentors in the Taylor School District. It is the brainchild of Salmone, a judge in the 23^rd District Court. Ziomek, a former editor at The News-Herald and the author of this blog, is the vice-chairman of the TRC board, while Sardanopoli, a Grosse Ile resident and former member of the GI Board of Education, is a current member of the Taylor Rotary and chairman of the TRC’s volunteer committee.

TAYLOR – The Michigan Reading Association honored the Taylor Reading Corps with its statewide agency award during the MRA’s winter conference and convention in Grand Rapids earlier this month.

The annual convention, “Lighting the Way for Literacy,” took place March 8-10 and drew more than 2,000 authors, educators and more to the DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids. The MRA is a non-profit group that is dedicated to promoting literacy in education and beyond.

Six statewide honors were awarded by the MRA. The MRA recognized the Taylor Reading Corps for its development as a non-profit literacy incubator since it was created in late 2011. TRC Board of Directors members Armando Sardanopoli, Geno Salomone and Karl Ziomek traveled to Grand Rapids to accept the award.

The Taylor Reading Corps is a direct result of Salomone’s effort to create a volunteer adult reading force to work with students in the Taylor School District. A judge in the 23^rd District Court and a lifelong resident of Taylor, Salmone witnessed first-hand in his courtroom the negative effects that come about through a lack of education.

“There is a direct correlation between a person’s lack of education and the increase probability of becoming a defendant (in court),” he said. “(The TRC) is the first step toward insuring that anyone graduating from a Taylor high school has the actual ability to perform at a 12^th-grade level. We want student to have the actual educational ability, not just a diploma.”

National statistics underscore Salomone’s concern. There is a link between poor reading skills and academic failure and delinquency, violence and crime. In fact, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report in 2010, 75 percent of inmates in American prisons cannot read above the fourth-grade level.

Now in its second year, the TRC has sought to aid Taylor School District pupils at the preschool and lower-elementary school level. It started recruiting, training and supervising adult reading volunteers last year, beginning on the kindergarten level. The corps ended up with approximately 100 adult mentors working with about 200 non-reading-proficient pupils. Despite the fact that the TRC was only able to work with those students for approximately half the school year, educators noted gains in their reading proficiency.

Through a partnership with Wayne State University, which analyzes data from the TRC program each year, last year’s results indicated that pupils involved in the corps’ mentoring program “closed the gap” on their more academically ready peers in the school system. Dr. Kate Roberts, an assistant professor of Reading, Language and Literature at WSU, is scheduled to analyze the TRC data each year to add objective, third-party creditability to the program’s results.

“The data showed that we are closing the cap,” said Emily Graham, then the school improvement coordinator for the Taylor School District. “Though the (pupils being mentored through the TRC had) not completely ‘caught up’ to their peers by the end of last year, they made great gains in approaching grade-level targets.”

The fact that the TRC program closed the reading gap last year cannot be underestimated. The ultimate goal is to have all students in the Taylor School District reading at or above grade level by the end of the third grade. Studies have shown that pupils who are non-proficient readers by the end of the third grade have trouble at the high school level. In fact, nearly a quarter of below basic readers in third-grade drop out or fail to finish school on time. According to a Pew Foundation report in 2010, the national adult illiteracy rate lingers around 18 percent, while the adult illiteracy rate in the Detroit metro area is as high as 47 percent.

Therefore, it is highly important to teach good reading skills as early as possible.

“We have to remember that the group we are targeting (the youngest of the elementary school non-proficient readers) has been consistently falling behind their peers for year,” Graham said. “So the fact that we are closing that gap is of huge significance.”

About half of the incoming kindergarten pupils entering Taylor each year need special assistance in reading. That statistic, over time, will be mitigated by a new TRC-PNC partnership.

This year the TRC has expanded its program. Through a “Grow Up Great” grant from the PNC Foundation, the corps is now mentoring preschoolers with PNC Bank employees serving as the volunteer adult reading mentors. Other new adult mentors recruited and trained this year are working with new Taylor kindergarten pupils, while last year’s adult mentors continue to work with their own pupils, most of which have moved to the first-grade level. Next year, the program will continue its expansion, including the second-grade level.

Currently, the TRC has approximately 200 adult volunteers working with about 300 students, but it is sorely still in need of volunteers. Volunteering can be very easy: The TRC supplies in-house training and plenty of learning and background materials. TRC staff tailors the mentoring schedule as best as possible around the requests of the individual volunteer, scheduling them in the school that they prefer at times that they prefer. As part of the program, the TRC also hosts ongoing educational sessions for adult mentors – all on a totally voluntary basis. Many of those sessions include other adult peers who just trade stories and other tidbits to aid in the mentoring process.

The TRC has been very fortunate to partner with some tremendous donors. PNC’s “Grow Up Great” program tops a list that also includes McKinley Properties Inc., Fritz Industries, Walmart of Taylor and Sax Pharmacy (which has donated the TRC office space in the Wick-Pardee plaza) along with dozens of others. In fact, PNC Regional President Ric DeVore and McKinley CEO Albert Berriz both serve on TRC’s capital campaign committee. U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-12^th District) is the honorary capital campaign chairman.

The TRC continue to seek volunteers or donations. To volunteer or donate to the Taylor Reading Corps, email info@taylorreadingcorps.org or telephone 1-313-769-6730. Anyone interested in the program can also click on the Web site at www.TaylorReadingCorps.org, or write to the TRC, PO Box 276, Taylor, MI, 48180. The TRC is open during regular business hours Mondays through Fridays in the old U.S. Army recruiting storefront office at 22755 Wick, inside the Sax Pharmacy plaza (Wick Road at Pardee).