Oakes organizes program to help students improve reading skills

Reading is an unappreciated skill.

For the millions of people who built the connection between letter recognition, word cognition and sentence comprehension, learning to read occurred long ago.

Most would be hard put to explain just how they mastered it.

For those who struggle to understand phrases and phonics, reading remains an unsolvable mystery.

Lynette Oakes, Reading Recovery teacher leader for Fremont Public Schools, sees the prospects of those who fall behind in their reading development.

That vision spells a limited future for the student.

“Our reading intervention program actually has its origin in the University of South Dakota. To address low reading scores, we initiated Reading Recovery in 1999. Since then, we have trained one teacher in each elementary school in the district. Our teachers assess the basic word skills of our kindergarten class each May. If we find a student who is struggling with reading, we intervene at the beginning of first grade,” Oakes said.

While Reading Recovery is not a part of the special education program, if a student continues to show a difficulty in reading mastery, careful documentation aids the determination of appropriate special education services at a later point in the student’s educational experience.

“Many students come to kindergarten able to read some words,” Oakes explained. “Others have not had the same amount of exposure. The written, and often the spoken, language puzzles them. Our program encompasses 12-20 weeks of individualized work with the child. We anticipate eight to 10 students from each school. Thirty minutes a day brings remarkable results. Our records indicate we work successfully with 65-70 students districtwide per year.”

Reading Recovery is considered the “Gold Standard of Intervention” in addressing reading inadequacies today. Locally, Oakes credits Reading Recovery with “a complete turnaround” in literacy scores since the program hit its stride.

Oakes continues the effort during “Summer Reading Camp” held at Washington School every July. Students who could benefit from additional reading are grouped together for four weeks, three hours per day.

“I want to be clear,” Oakes said. “This is not about teaching English to students who do not speak the language. Reading Recovery is all about solving, for some youngsters, the puzzle of reading which inhibits their learning.”

An additional benefit, Oakes said, is the training the classroom teachers receive during the summer camp -- training which they take with them into the next academic year.

Midland students help the camp as para-educators. For those future teachers, Reading Recovery arms them with best practice skills as they walk into their first classroom a few short years down the road, Oakes said.

The 2008 Summer Reading Camp is July 14 through Aug. 8.

“Parents are always overjoyed to know the extra help is available,” Oakes said.

Any qualified student in Fremont may attend the Summer Reading Camp.