“Big words, and sometimes small words, I forget.”
She‘s reading with Sandy Morgan, who joined the corps three years ago after retiring. Ms. Morgan has been meeting Kenasia twice a week for six months at Miner Elementary School in Washington, D.C. She says they have built a trustful relationship and made reading fun. Ms. Morgan says the children feel comfortable with their over-50 adult helpers.
“Most of us are parents and grandparents. We get through to them. We just talk to them calmly. But we definitely have patience. But we have learned that over the years through experience.”
When the children are reading, they may have problems centering their attention on the words. They may mix up letters or add words that are not there.
Dajah Staton, who is nine years old, faces those problems. Volunteer Linda Nelson is working with Dajah, who reads at the level of a beginner.
Ms. Nelson says she encourages Dajah when the girl feels like giving up. Ms. Nelson tells the child that the whole world will open for her if she can read a story and understand it.
Dajah’s mother, Florita Staton, is grateful for the help from Experience Corps. Ms. Staton says without the corps, her daughter might be farther behind than she is.
The adult literacy rate in the United States is more than 97 percent. But a national reading test shows that almost 40 percent of seven- and eight-year-olds do not have basic reading skills. Studies have shown that those children are more likely to drop out of school in the future. And children from poor families are even more likely to leave.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25