Fall 2001 Raising
Montana Buyer
Beware: Bacteria
Busters Carbon
Castaway First
Ladies of Literacy Healing
Waters Briefs
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__________ EDUCATION __________ First
Ladies of Literacy
Montana children will take home a special souvenir next summer when they leave UM’s literacy camp, thanks to a grant from the National Education Association Foundation for the Improvement of Education. UM Professors Rhea Ashmore and Marian McKenna, the first Montana educators to receive such a grant, will use the money to buy children’s literature for summer literacy camps that help students with reading and writing skills. “My goal for seeking the funding was to be able to purchase high-quality children’s literature for the program and to be able to give a favorite book to students at the conclusion of each camp,” Ashmore says. With the assistance of Missoula fourth-grade teacher Sue Rowe, the camps have been held in local schools for more than 10 years. The program serves grades two through eight. Ashmore is chair of curriculum and instruction in UM’s School of Education. University students seeking certification as Literacy Specialists in Montana receive class credit to teach at the literacy camps. “Teaching
at the summer camps gives the students a way to fulfill practicum
requirements, and the camps provide an excellent preview of what it
will be like in a school setting with youngsters who have a wide variety
of reading strengths and needs,” Ashmore says.
The camps, which are held four days a week for six weeks, allow young students to participate in small-group settings. “Many camps have been able to offer one teacher for every five students, which gives students valuable individual attention,” Ashmore says. Ashmore and McKenna won the 2001 NEA grant in the category that supports two or more educators who collaborate to develop and implement innovative ideas that result in high student achievement. This project is not the first collaboration between the two UM colleagues, who are state leaders in promoting literacy. Together they launched the Montana Reads campaign as part of President Bill Clinton’s 1997 America Reads Challenge that called for every schoolchild in America to read well and independently by third grade. Ashmore and McKenna have worked with students from UM’s Volunteer Action Services for the past four years to place more than 30 University students as tutors in kindergarten and first- and second-grade classrooms at Missoula schools. The UM students provide one-on-one tutoring to help children become better readers, and hopefully create a lifelong passion for reading. To help spur that passion along, UM started an annual book drive in 1999 to support the Montana Reads program. The drive brings in donated books, mostly from local stores, to children being tutored. This year’s drive, which concluded in October, brought in hundreds of books from Missoula bookstores for youngsters to take home and share with younger siblings. |
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