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In the NewsAsheville Augustine Project Launches in JulyAccording to a recent report issued by the Asheville City Schools, only 41% of African-American third- through eighth-grade students have reading levels at or above grade level. Approximately 18% of children in Buncombe County will not graduate high school. This summer the Literacy Council launches its Asheville Augustine Project to serve these at-risk children and teens in grades K-12. The project trained 14 volunteer tutors in July to work with low-income students struggling with literacy skills. The tutors will provide free, long term, one-on-one instruction. The Asheville Augustine Project tutor training included over 60 hours of classroom instruction and hands-on practicum teaching under the supervision of an experienced Orton-Gillingham tutor and/or Certified Academic Language Therapist. Trainees learn how to assess and remediate students’ phonemic awareness skills, phonics, word attack skills, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling and writing. “It almost brought us to tears to watch one [practicum] student sitting on the edge of his seat, fully engrossed in the task at hand,” says Julie Thomas, a former second grade teacher and volunteer tutor trainee. It was like you could see the light bulbs going off in his head. You could almost read his thoughts, ‘I’m reading! I’m reading! I can do this!’” The Literacy Council is replicating the Augustine Project based at Holy Family Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill, NC. This literacy tutoring program has a fifteen year history of successfully training more than 550 Augustine tutors and serving 92 schools and after school programs in the Triangle area. “Our project began two years ago,” said Literacy Council Executive Director Amanda Edwards, “when the Literacy Council served on the School Success Network Council and realized the lack of intensive tutoring programs for struggling readers. The Literacy Council wanted to reach these students before they dropped out of school. With generous funding from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, we are pleased to see the Augustine Project come to life.”
Help needed to find locations for adult ESOL small classes.
“Traditionally the Literacy Council has provided one-on-one tutoring to its ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students. But the demand for ESOL training in Buncombe County far, far exceeds our ability to keep up,” ESOL Program Coordinator Erin Sebelius laments. “One of my approaches is to serve more by serving more than one student at a time! One way to do that is to launch small classes for our ESOL students. We’re making great strides in adding classes to our program, but it’s not as easy as you might think.” The Literacy Council has about 250 ESOL students and a waiting list of nearly 100. Many of these students receive individual tutoring in speaking, reading, and writing English. But so many more could be served in small class settings. “We have the volunteer tutors. We have the students. We have the methods. What we need are host facilities!” says Erin. Currently 19 group classes – ranging in size from four to ten ESOL adult students – are hosted at different locations around Asheville. Host locations include St. Eugene’s Catholic Church, Lutheran Church of the Nativity, St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, YWCA, and YMCA. “But I need more. I’m looking for community partners who will provide space where Literacy Council tutors can meet for ESOL classroom instruction,” explains Erin. “We have a $10,000 grant from Dollar General to expand community classes and it’s important that we meet the grant objectives for ten new classes. We also have a grant from the YMCA to provide ESOL classes to parents of at-risk kids who are participating in the Y’s after school enrichment program. To support this partnership, we began providing ESOL classes to parents at Enka and Erwin Middle Schools in January.” “In addition to the YMCA program, we have other new partnerships with schools this year that I’m really excited about,” Erin continues. “Starting in March, we’ll offer ESOL classes to parents at Erwin High, T.C. Roberson High, and Vance Elementary. Thanks to a partnership with International Link, the Vance class will include childcare and homework help.” “Open your heart and help open the doors,” Erin appeals. “The Literacy Council can take it from there.” To learn more about how your organization can host classes for ESOL students, please contact Erin Sebelius, ESOL Program Coordinator, at esol@litcouncil.com or call 828-254-3442, ext. 201.
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The Literacy Council continuously seeks opportunities to expand small class instruction for adults in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Churches, schools, libraries, retirement centers, community centers, and businesses are all good locations to host small ESOL classes. 