By Sara Woelfel
“Reading, in itself, is a tool by which man acquires knowledge of
the world about him – the physical, intellectual, practical and
abstract. Much of the great literature, the history of mankind, the
studies of great philosophers and findings of science are lost to the
person who cannot read efficiently.” – Sister Julitta Fisch, OSF, former
director of the Reading Clinic
Third grader Zack Kaufman’s mother describes him as “painfully shy.”
“He doesn’t want to participate in class because he’s afraid of
making a mistake,” Kathleen Kaufman of Milwaukee said. “Zack’s not
behind in school, but I think he needs more confidence.”
Zack’s not alone, according to Gloria Wiener, director of Stritch’s
Reading/Learning Center (RLC), who said his story is common among
children who have not mastered reading skills at the same rate as their
peers. Some children simply need to boost their skills, while others may
have more severe problems that they have disguised for years.
It is children and young people such as these, with an array of
problems regarding reading, who are the focus of the RLC, an on-campus
center at Stritch that is steeped in history and dedicated to turning
lives around through the mastery of reading.
The center has served more than 20,000 students since it opened in
1943. But skill-based instruction is only part of its mission.
Identifying the problem as reading-based is half the battle.
“Reading problems are often difficult for classroom teachers to
detect,” Wiener said. “The longer kids live with the problem, the better
they become at coping and using avoidance techniques. They redirect
discussion to get a teacher off course or withdraw from discussions
altogether. Many won’t even raise their hands. Others may become more
verbal and take on a ‘halo effect,’ aiming to please the teacher to
disguise their inadequacies.”
And such avoidance can have serious consequences. According to
research done by the Corporation for National Service, children who do
not get help with reading difficulties may find themselves lacking
essential skills for employment as adults. More than 20 percent of
adults in America read at or below a fifth-grade level, which is far
below the level needed to earn a living wage. Forty-three percent of
people with the lowest literacy levels live in poverty.
“Reading is the ultimate skill,” Wiener said. “Without knowing how to
read, you can’t fix a car, play a computer game, or use a cookbook. You
can’t learn much without knowing how to read. It’s a skill that
encompasses every hobby, every field of endeavor. Nothing happens
without reading. It’s basic, like breathing. If our kids can’t read,
then they won’t be able to invent and create.”
Taking an individualized approach
Wiener’s dedication to reading education is nothing new at Stritch.
As director of the RLC, she continues to build and maintain a reading
program started more than a half-century ago by the Sisters of St.
Francis of Assisi. While the staff and location have changed over the
years, the dual purpose of the clinic remains constant: to help young
students improve their reading skills through affordable and
individualized instruction while offering Stritch graduate students a
setting in which they can develop their teaching methods.
Students come primarily from Southeastern Wisconsin and some from
Chicago to take classes year-round at Stritch. Today, most of the
students, who range in age from first grade through high school, hear
about the clinic through word of mouth or have parents who attended.
Wiener, who worked for Milwaukee Public Schools for more than 30 years,
also spreads the word through her colleagues there.
The strategies used with these students were developed by the Sisters and are still used by RLC clinicians today.
“Lesson plans are individualized according to a child’s reading
ability, strengths and needs,” Wiener said. “Children are tested and
assessed when they enter the program to allow us to understand exactly
what they need. We build a curriculum for a single child rather than
just following a standard curriculum. Every day is based on what the
student did before and how well it was done.”
During the tutoring sessions, teachers focus on working with words,
phonics and using words the children know to help them figure out new
words. Textbooks, magazines, newspapers, donated materials, and the
Internet are used as resource materials. Teachers have to be creative to
keep a student’s interest, Wiener said.
“The key issue is getting kids to read,” said Dr. JoAnne Caldwell, a
former director of the RLC and current chair of Stritch’s
reading/language arts department. “If it works, we do it. When our
teachers finish for the day, they reflect on what the students did and
didn’t do. They adjust their lesson plans based on their observations.”
The graduate students, who are experienced teachers pursuing
specialized training in reading education, use methods they learned in
class while working with two to four students, grouped according to
abilities and needs. The hands-on training allows the teachers to
understand concepts, design instruction according to each child’s
abilities, and interact and form relationships with problem readers.
“As a reading tutor, I’m hired by schools to work intensely with
phonics,” said Kathy Murry, a master’s degree student in
reading/learning disabilities. “At Stritch, I’m broadening my skills and
expanding the strategies available to me as I teach. I will be able to
draw from a wide spectrum of options when teaching in the future. I feel
a sense of satisfaction in helping to ease some of the panic the
students feel. It’s a slow process, chipping away at reading concepts,
but we’re helping them achieve a necessity.”
While one-on-one tutoring services with reading specialists are
available at the University, the staff encourages small-group
interactions, to enhance the learning process.
“Small groups provide opportunities for communication and
collaboration, making it easier for students to transfer skills back to
the school setting,” Wiener said.
“Kids realize they are not the only ones having trouble,” Caldwell
said. “They help each other. We moved away from one-on-one instruction
for most of our students because we began to see how kids can teach each
other.”
The teachers create a non-threatening environment that encourages
students to participate in discussions and test their reading skills.
“We don’t want them in a regular school setting with heads down and
eyes on the floor,” Wiener said. “We also don’t talk at kids. They have
that for 10 months of the year. Instead we require them to answer
questions like, ‘What are you doing? How are you doing it?’ By having
the children verbalize, we motivate them to be a part of the educational
process.”
Wiener recognizes that different approaches trigger different
responses in students, especially older students who do not need help
with their basic skills but need to learn to read for information and to
study more effectively.
“During the school year, these kids are textbooked to death, and
that’s been unsuccessful,” Wiener said. “If we get them talking about a
subject they are really interested in or show them a magazine article
about their favorite activity, they begin to see that reading isn’t just
about school, it’s about life.”
According to his mother, Zack discovered a new attitude toward reading with the help of his teacher, Julie Schneider.
“She caught on to what he needed and brought a level of comfort to
the class,” Kaufman said. “His attitude about reading has changed. Zack
just needed an extra boost, and I really feel like she gave that to
him.”
Deep-seated roots
“The reading program at [Stritch] would never have been the success
it was had it not been for the large number of our Sisters who gave
their precious Saturdays and late afternoons during the school year and
in summer to teach in our reading clinic,” Sister Julitta Fisch, OSF,
one of the first directors of the clinic and first president of the
Wisconsin State Reading Association, wrote in “Our Stories: A Franciscan
Heritage.” “Much gratitude is due to these Sisters. It was a sacrifice
to give their time, but it was they who gave the Stritch Reading Clinic
its name in the reading field.”
By opening one of the first reading clinics in the Midwest in 1943,
Stritch, then named St. Clare College, and the Sisters of St. Francis
quickly gained a national reputation for their pioneering research and
methods. In the years that followed, the clinic’s reputation grew with
the annual reading conferences, the recognition of Sister Julitta as one
of the nation’s primary reading experts, and the introduction of one of
the nation’s first graduate degrees in reading education.
“Each year, we invited different top-name people to be the main
speakers at the conference,” Sister Julitta said. “I went out to see
them (the reading experts), and then they came to our place. That’s how
we became so well known. One thousand people or more from in state and
out of state would come to the conferences in the fall.”
“Stritch’s reading conferences predated state reading conferences,”
said Sister Marie Colette Roy, a former director of the clinic. “Nothing
was comparable. These annual conferences attracted loads of educators
who were concerned to learn what they could about reading instruction.”
Despite the national attention the clinic received as a result of the
conferences, “eventually others began their own conferences and it was
no longer a novelty,” said Sister M. Camille Kliebhan, Stritch’s
chancellor and past president. “The conferences faded out because they
were no longer unique.”
Aside from the success of the conferences, the College’s reading
education program gained national attention for its graduate degree. “We
were pioneers in giving a degree in reading education because we were
one of the earliest to recognize the field as important,” Sister Camille
said.
The creation of master’s degrees in reading and special education
marked the beginning of the College’s graduate division and the
beginning of the admittance of men at the graduate level. The existing
undergraduate reading education curriculum, practicum experiences, and
required research served as a foundation for the new program and quickly
gained the interest of teachers and other educators.
The College also offered these master’s degrees at their Boston
clinic, which was established at the request of Richard Cardinal Cushing
in 1951 to serve as a reading research and teacher education center for
Boston and its suburbs. This clinic closed in 1960 when the College
could no longer support personnel needs in both Milwaukee and Boston.
In the early 1970s, local public school systems requested that the
reading education courses be taught off campus. Based on the
availability of faculty, Stritch was able to fulfill some of these
requests. This willingness to offer graduate education degree programs
off site continues today through the College of Education.
While the success of the clinic can be attributed to the quality of
its offerings, including the reading lessons, conferences and graduate
degree, many people credit the Sisters of St. Francis, with their
devotion and sacrifices, for the clinic’s reputation and success.
“We had many of our own Sisters working there, not earning great big
salaries,” said Sister Marie Gerard Peter, OSF, a former director of the
clinic. “We could offer reading classes at a professional level without
charging an arm and a leg.”
During the summer sessions, when enrollments were at their highest,
the Sisters not only taught classes at the College but also fulfilled
other duties, such as serving in the cafeteria, being moderators in the
residence hall, and even cleaning bathrooms to keep the campus running
smoothly. They also doubled up in their rooms or slept in locker rooms
or offices to allow as many summer students as possible to live on
campus.
“As a part of our Franciscan heritage, and because we had a huge debt
on the College, we tried to live as economically as possible,” Sister
Marie Gerard wrote in “Our Stories.”
Many Sisters have fond memories of their work at the clinic and take
pride in the thousands of students and teachers who have benefited from
their efforts. The reputation they so carefully nurtured is still
recognized by educators and schools today.
“When my resume shows that I’m in the graduate program at Stritch,” Murry said, “that carries a lot of weight.”
What’s next?
As Wiener considers the future, she is not planning to turn to
technology to improve the reading lessons taught at the RLC. “Many kids
are turned off by the computer if they can’t read,” she said. “For some
beginning readers, computer-aided instruction may be beneficial. But
equipping every classroom with a computer is not my goal.”
Instead, Wiener has her sights set on expanding the center’s
offerings. “I would like us to help more children who are diagnosed with
specific learning needs. Many parents are looking for places for their
special-needs children. Sure, some of the kids go to camps in the
summer, but that’s recreational and only for two weeks. We can give them
academic opportunities.
“Reading is a life skill that all children can and should master.”