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 23rd 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 23rd 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 12th-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-12th 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).
