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CSUN Literacy Program Gives Students The Keys to Help Children Open the Doors to Reading

Several Cal State Northridge liberal studies majors are sitting on the floor or at small tables surrounded by eager and smiling kindergartners in the university’s Child and Family Studies Center Lab School.

The adults and children are in small groups playing games using letters of the alphabet, shapes, colors and sounds. Words of encouragement and laughter fill the room while young faces light up with excitement and the children build strong foundations for reading.

The liberal studies students are in their first semester of a yearlong program that trains future educators in how best to teach reading and writing to children, including at-risk learners and those with special needs.

Cal State Northridge’s Literacy Scholars for the Future of Los Angeles program, now in its fourth year, targets those children who are at risk for falling behind academically because they live in poverty, who come from families where English is a second language spoken at home, whose families are new immigrants or who have unrecognized learning disabilities.

The program’s impact has been recognized nationally. Last year, it received a $35,000 grant from Oprah’s Angel Network for the 2009-2010 academic year.

“We tend to think that kids just learn to read and write in school without giving any thought to how that happens,” said Elizabeth Adams, associate dean of the College of Humanities and coordinator of the Literacy Scholars program. “But we all don’t learn the same way at the same time, nor do we all have the same obstacles to overcome while we are trying to learn to read and write.

“What this program does is give teachers a set of skills and the knowledge to use them effectively so that they can truly make a difference in a kid’s life,” Adams said.

The liberal studies students taking part in the program, many of whom plan to go on and get a teaching credential, complete a specialized concentration that includes courses that focus on specific aspects of literacy, including the significant role of language itself as well as what happens in the brain when a child learns, and a field placement working with emerging readers and writers.

The students work with 15-20 kindergartners the first semester and more than 40 kindergartners during the second semester. Integral to the experience is the constant feedback the CSUN students receive from not only their professors, but also the teachers and families of the children they work with.

Special education professor Sue Sears and English professor Sharon Klein, who together oversee the first semester’s practical experience, said the time at the Lab School is important as the Literacy Scholars begin to develop the skills they need to become effective teachers.

“They are working with a variety of children with a wide range of abilities,” Klein said. “At the Lab School, which is a controlled environment here on the campus, there are children with disabilities and there are children already beginning to read.”

Sears said the diversity forces the Literacy Scholars to realize that they are going to have to be flexible-that what worked with one child may not work with another.

The school’s kindergarten teacher, her teaching assistants, the school’s inclusion specialist and Sears and Klein are on hand to offer guidance and support. When the liberal studies students return to their classroom, Sears, Klein, the kindergarten teacher and inclusion specialist offer feedback on how well their “lessons” with the children went.

This initial training is crucial to prepare the students for the spring semester of the program, when associate professor of Chicano/a studies Rosa Furumoto pairs them up with kindergartners and their families in the community.

“The impact the program has can be incredible, particularly when our students get into the home setting and find themselves working with families that don’t speak English at home or have other cultural issues or the children have undiagnosed learning disabilities,” Adams said. “Our students can see directly what the issues are, including adult literacy issues, that can have an impact on a child learning to read and write.”

By the time the students finish the Literacy Scholars program, Adams said, they should have the tools and the ability to react with patience and flexibility when working with children from a variety of backgrounds and help them on the road to reading.

Those are skills Adams and her colleagues hope graduates of the program will share with their peers as they become professional educators.

“They have tools they know work, and they can share them with other teachers, who in turn can also put those tools into practice and then share what they have learned,” Adams said. “The gift of reading truly can’t be matched. Once a child learns how to read and experiences the joy of opening a book and discovers the magic of the words on the page, there is no stopping him or her.”