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SALT LAKE CITY -- A tutor at the University of Utah Reading Clinic was reading through one last book with a young student before he left for the final time that summer. The tutor was carefully pronouncing the words and the boy seemed to be eating them up. He was one of many post-kindergarten kids who were improving their reading before they hit the first grade.
- Created by the 1999 Utah Legislature to provide specific "direct services" to Utah educators and parents.
- Goals include: serving as a resource for parents by offering assessment and intervention to struggling readers; providing professional development to educators.
Clinic liaison Julie Jaussi said the reading skills of most of their students are pretty low. "They recognize between 16 and 18 letters of the lower case letters in the alphabet. A lot of children don't have the simple concept word," she said.
Each student is referred to the program by teachers and principals of low income schools, and score low on tests. They also come from a diverse population where English is sometimes a second language.
So how is the program different from school? Each student gets one on one attention from tutors.
"Most students have struggled in a class situation and can become distracted. The beauty of one on one is that you know exactly where the child is. So you can keep them on the edge of learning and keep feeding them that will increase their knowledge," said Jaussi.
Reading repetition, how to pronounce words and letters plus writing and spelling are key components of the six week program. And Jaussi believes the program is necessary. She said if the kids don't pick up basic concepts now, they will continually fall behind as they progress in school.
Jaussi said the program is working. "We get a lot of success stories where students say that they have read a sentence or book to their parent. We have a lot of parents say to us that their child picked up to read a book for the first time."
E-mail: cwall@ksl.com
