LOGOS Student Newspaper

Logos photo by Misty Fandel
Read Right tutor Celeste Christensen sits with NIACC students Christion Quaye and Adam Spading as they prepare their MP3 players to listen to the readings. The Read Right program is currently in a three-week introduction period with full time classes starting next semester.

Read Right program aims to help students

A new reading program, Read Right, will make its debut next semester. Read Right aims to help students of all reading levels become more comfortable with their reading and understand the reading better .

“This program helps everybody,” Gerry Schwarz, NIACC College Reading Strategies and Read Right instructor, said. “It isn’t just for those who can’t necessarily read. It’s for those who just want to improve their reading comprehension and comfort level as a whole. We can all use some help improving the way we read and comprehend.”

An introduction to the program began November 3 in the College Reading Strategies and Enrichment Reading and Writing classes.

“It’s been fun,” Richard Ristau, a NIACC student involved in the introduction, said. “I’ve already been able to see an improvement in my reading and it’s only been a couple of weeks.”

The Read Right program was started in 1991 by Dr. Dee Tadlock, who developed the program to solve her son’s reading problems after traditional methods had failed.

Currently the Read Right program is used in 91 elementary, middle and high schools, 87 industrial institutions like Chrysler, Ford and Boeing, as well as three correctional institutions for juveniles.

“I know of only four other colleges in the US who have the program,” Schwarz said. “It’s primarily used in elementary and middle schools but that doesn’t mean that colleges haven’t had success with it because they have.”

Because there are few colleges with the program, Schwarz said she hopes NIACC can become a standard for other colleges.

“NIACC certainly is in a position to become a lightning rod for the rest of the state and other colleges who want to put a program like this in place,” Schwarz said.

“I’ve been working for three years to get it here,” Schwarz said. “It was a struggle to convince the NIACC Board to OK it. It was a struggle to get the funding. But in the end, I think it’s going to be well worth it.”

Students in the program first determine their current reading level. From there, students work with tutors, paragraph by paragraph, until the reading feels comfortable and natural.

There are currently four tutors in the program who work with a group of three to four students at a time.

Those tutors include: Celeste Christensen, Carol Evers, Kathy Novak and Kathy Schroeder.

The students use MP3 players to listen to the story before reading aloud. Stories are uploaded to the MP3 player prior to the group sessions.

“The MP3 players make it more fun and interesting,” Ristau said. “It’s helpful to hear how the words and everything are pronounced before I read it out loud myself.”

The progress and interest shown in the introduction program is encouraging to Schwarz.

“I am so excited for this program to take off,” Schwarz said. “Every time I come into the classroom and see the students reading, it’s like ‘wow’.”

The Read Right program will be the basis of a new class called Power Reading. The two-hour credit developmental class will meet each week next semester in Monday-Wednesday or Tuesday-Thursday sessions from 7:40 a.m. to 2:40 p.m. each day.