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| Reading program’s early results ‘astonishing’ | |
By Jeff Green Sometimes young people who can't read or who have problems comprehending what they have read get a second chance. Read Right, a reading program developed and marketed by a private, Shelton-based company of the same name, has shown remarkable results for youths incarcerated inside Mission Creek Youth Camp, a state juvenile facility a couple of miles northwest of Belfair. And those results could prove revolutionary in changing the lives of the youths, helping to lift them up from their poverty and ignorance and giving them hope for someday completing their education and landing jobs. SO ASTOUNDING were the gains made by the youths, the results brought tears to the eyes of Jan Blase, principal at the Mission Creek School. "Never have I seen any one technique move kids so quickly in so critical a skill. And I think that's what is so astonishing to me," said Blase, a 24-year veteran educator at the juvenile facility. "They're on to something. I'm very impressed," she noted. "I'm blown away. I'm amazed," she said, her voice catching before she paused a moment to wipe the tears from her eyes. It was one of those moments that stays with you; the raw emotions brought on by the test scores of some troubled youths. And the ramifications are staggering. "THEY HAVE incredible results. I don't think we can afford to ignore this," Blase said of Read Right. "We have the potential to impact every aspect of these kids' lives." If they read better and comprehend better, they listen better and are more thoughtful, she added. "Almost every kid that was in this study is more employable than he was three months ago," Blase said. The 18 youths who participated in the pilot project, whose average age was 16.8 years, gained an average 3.2 grades in reading and comprehension ability in only 12 weeks. They came in with an average reading level of just below the eighth grade. They finished at the 11th-grade level. "PHENOMENAL, they really are," Mission Creek Youth Camp Superintendent Karen Brunson said of the standardized reading test results. "This particular program really has the potential to assist us with the rehabilitation process." "Most of these kids have gone to school for 10 or 11 years without learning to read. Something's wrong with that picture," said Blase, who speaks with just a trace of a Mississippi accent and tends to gesture with her hands to punctuate her points. "The thing I'm looking for is increase in reading score. And the few kids we've tested so far, I'm seeing some pretty astonishing results. So that's what I'm looking for," she explained "I gave Read Right a really broad range of kids in terms of skill levels. There are a number of kids who are special education-identified kids and there are kids who are not. "I didn't want them to realize anything about the kids other than what their testing showed them, and pretty much that's what we've done." BLASE SAID she was disappointed in the results of the first youth tested following the 12-week project. The boy did make some gains, rising from grade 9 to 9.3. "Could be an attitude problem. He's a kid with a serious attitude problem," Blase said. "In talking with him, he was very happy with his gain. He felt his gain in reading was much greater than what that showed and I never shared that with him, because he was real happy and I didn't want to burst that bubble." She admitted she was kind of worried at that point because he was the first to be tested. "The next week we post-tested four more kids, two of whom came in as very adequate readers with low comprehension compared to their decoding skills, compared to how they could look at a word and tell what that word was," she said. "NEITHER ONE of them made big gains in decoding, but the really critical thing was looking at their comprehension. One came in with a comprehension score of early eighth grade. The other one came in with a comprehension score of late ninth grade. They both, on post-testing, topped out the test on comprehension," which is at grade level 16.9, fifth year in college. "The really important thing to me - I feel real good about both those kids - either one of them would have survived without this gift; nice gift to give them," Blase said. What excited her was one youth who came in reading at a grade level of 5.8 and left two months later reading at grade level 10.1. "That's remarkable. We gave that kid a gift that can't be replaced," Blase said. "The fourth kid that we tested did not have as big a gain but is still remarkable for two months. He went from 7.1 to 8.6 in broad reading," she said. "We aren't going to cure all these kids' ills by teaching them to read," Blase said. "There are a lot of problems. ...But giving them literacy, giving them the skills they can use to go out there and make something of their lives is a biggie. You've got a lot better chance at seeing positive change with them given these skills than you're ever going to have without it. Learning is change." READ RIGHT focuses on context, on what the text says. The method ties into how the brain learns most effectively. The brain has to be forced into remodeling the old, ineffective guidance system so it operates appropriately and produces the desired result, better reading. A key element to the program is the skill of the reading tutor. Inside a windowless room deep in the basement of a plain, institutional building at the state juvenile facility, something bordering on the magical was happening. A young man sat at a table. His large hands cradled a book. He was struggling to read, to read a simple story that some adults might scoff at for being too childish. But when you can barely read at all, and when you're incarcerated in a place like Mission Creek Youth Camp, any effort like the young man's is a worthy one. He read aloud, laboring over each word like a man rolling a huge rock up a steep hill a step at a time. THE YOUNG man entered a pilot reading project at Mission Creek reading at a first-grade level. He was engrossed in the book, which happened to be about seeds. "A flower is a seed," he read aloud slowly. "Good job," said Jason Campbell, the young man's tutor. "Try it again now." As the young man continued with the story, Campbell alternated with "good job" and "start again." Once he said, "That doesn't make sense to me. Try again." MINUTES BEFORE, Campbell led a trio of young men in a critical thinking session. They sat around the table discussing short articles they had read. Campbell's questions probed their understanding of the readings. He encouraged them to discuss the meanings of key passages. The young men didn't always agree about the passages. But they didn't argue and they did have to defend their positions. The young men were part of the literacy pilot project at Mission Creek that concluded last month. Two of them talked freely about their reading progress. The first youth, 18, was locked up in April 1997. He was in the ninth grade. "IT HELPED me. I wasn't that good a reader before," he said of the reading project. He admitted he read a little bit while he was in detention before, but added, "I never really wanted to." Now he wants to read because he wants to get his general educational development (GED) certificate. And he's thinking of someday working for his father's electronics company. He started in the sixth- to seventh-grade range. Now, he's reading in the 10th- to 11th-grade range. "I read more and I read faster," he said. "I just read because I'm starting to like it now. Because now I can understand what I'm reading and stuff." IT WASN'T always that way for him. "I just never read out loud," he said. What happened when a teacher in class told him it was his turn to read out loud? "I told them I wouldn't read," he said with a shrug. Now, he'd agree to read. "I guess I'm growing up," he added. He said his parents think it's good he's in the reading class. "MY MOM had me read to her, so I did. She said, 'Oh, my God, he can read!'" The experience of reading aloud to his mom made him feel good. His eyes brightened and he smiled as he recounted reading aloud to his mother. The second young man, 20, took some classes at Olympic College. He read at a post-high school level coming into the program, but didn't always comprehend what he read. "When I read now I actually read for meaning and I get the meaning," he said. "I had a post-secondary Read Right test today and they said my reading comprehension was up four years. I jumped up four years. It makes me feel good inside. "WHEN I read before, I might have seen a book that I liked and read it, but not caught the meaning of the whole story, just a lot of different parts that were important," he said. "And now when I read a story it's like I get the whole picture, I get the whole thing in the story. I get the meaning of the story, what the author's trying to say. "I've noticed that I've been reading more books, too. And I think some of the old books I've already read I'll probably read again. For sure there's things I missed out on," he added. He thinks the increase in his ability to comprehend the things he reads will help him finish school and move on. He wants to go to college. "I want to be a psychologist, a counselor. And that's short-term. In the long-term, I want to be in law, a lawyer," he said. "I didn't feel comfortable with my reading. I would never have read in front of a group," he admitted. Now he says he'd have no problem with it. "I'D PROBABLY be dead right now had I not been to institutions. I'd probably be dead or in some penitentiary. But I guess this was my wake up call. I know it was, actually," he said. Harris Haertel, Mason County's director of probation services, said he was impressed with two things: the actual increase in the juveniles' ability to read and understand what they read, and the way they expressed how that made them feel. They have a vision for what they can do in the future. And they have hope. "Hope, that's the key word," Haertel said. The literacy pilot project at Mission Creek was sponsored by a coalition of civic, business and government groups that joined together in helping the at-risk youths. They included: Skookum Rotary, Shelton Rotary, Lacey Rotary, North Mason Kiwanis, Mission Creek School, Read Right Systems, Washington State Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration, Joint Training Partnership Act and the Carl Perkins Act.
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Copyright 1995-2007 READ RIGHT Systems, Inc. |
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