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| APPLAUDING THE SUCCESS OF SPECIAL READING NEEDS PROGRAMS...
The success of our Special Reading Needs tutoring program has spawned the development of a new literacy initiative to benefit LaPorte County elementary students. With support from Michigan City Community Enrichment Foundation, NIPSCO, Alcoa Howmet, and the Milton and Sylvia Bankoff Memorial Foundation, the Literacy Council has created partnerships to provide scholastic magazines to every student in Michigan City first through fifth grades, to support teacher focus on both reading and writing skills. Additional funding will help replicate the program in other county school systems.
The city of Michigan City and the Enrichment Corporation continue to generously support our initial Special Reading Needs program, wherein students in grades 1-5 receive focused reading tutoring to bring their skills to grade level. Pre- and post-testing shows that significant strides were made with the more than 280 participants to date, and we are currently tracking to see if the improvements carried to their ISTEP scores. Unity Foundation also provided us a grant toward this project in the past year.
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OUR THANKS
TO UNITY FOUNDATION OF LAPORTE COUNTY for ongoing grants in support of the Literacy
Council's growth.
In
addition, we thank the following funders:
- Michigan
City Community Enrichment Corp., City of Michigan City, NIPSCO, Alcoa Howmet and Unity Foundation for
supporting the Special Reading Needs tutoring programs.
COUNCIL
HISTORY:
In
November 2002, Unity Foundation and The Discovery Alliance held
a forum to begin finding solutions for LaPorte County's very low
literacy rate, as studies show nearly 50 percent of residents read
at a minimal level. Healthy Communities was targeted as the potential
coordinator to develop a countywide literacy coalition to address
this important issue.
Over
the past years, several dedicated literacy service providers and
other supportive organizations have collaborated with HCLC
to grow this countywide effort.
Michigan
City resident Judy Hanish is a part-time coordinator handling tasks
such as strengthening marketing of programs and awareness of literacy
in our community, creating a referral system, and helping recruit
and train literacy volunteers. Our coalition is pursuing an aggressive
strategic plan to fulfill these goals, with additional focus on
early childhood literacy projects.
In
addition, the Literacy Council was pleased to merge its efforts
with Mayor Oberlie's Task Force on Literacy to work together to
benefit the county. For more information about LaPorte County literacy
projects, call Judy at 879-9486.
LITERACY COUNCIL OF
LAPORTE COUNTY MEMBERSHIP:
Adult Basic Education
BabyTALK
Barker Woods Enrichment
Center
Dunebrook
Healthy Communities of
LaPorte County
Ivy Tech Community College
La Porte County Public
Library
Michigan City Public Library
READ La Porte County,
Inc.
Sand Castle Shelter for Children and Families
Unity Foundation of La
Porte County
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