CHILDREN'S PROGRAMMING
Christian Literacy Associates (CLA) offers materials and training for teaching children from pre-school to a sixth-grade reading level. CLA reading materials are professionally designed for the non-professional. Currently, CLA offers parents, community programs, volunteers, schools, etc., a variety of ways to reach children with reading difficulties. One-on-one tutoring, Summer Reading Camps, After-school tutoring, and The Peer and Parent Reading Tutor-Training Program are excellent ways to help children improve their reading levels. Free training is available in our model program area. CLA tutor-trainers will travel to any area needing training workshops, as long as all costs relating to the visit are covered by the requesting church or group. DVD tutor-training discs and Christian Literacy instructional materials may be purchased at reasonable costs.
One-on-one tutoring is the best way to meet a child’s reading needs. Children proceed at their own pace with the tutor’s positive reinforcement. Already established after-school programs can easily incorporate a literacy component with simple training and reusable reading materials.
In 1997, the Summer Reading Camp concept was designed for children who are “at-risk” of failing due to poor reading skills. The children work in a small group environment of four children per “class”. Through our training and consultation, this program has grown from our model camp (Christian Literacy Summer Reading Camp) and has now been replicated by churches and community groups in Pittsburgh and other areas around the United States. Locally, over 1,500 children have improved their reading ability by an average of 9 months during the 36-hour two-week camps. A Summer Reading Camp Handbook is available for purchase which describes the Summer Reading Camp in detail.
Literacy Empowers After-school Programs (LEAP) was created to enable staff and volunteers of existing after-school programs to provide basic reading skills to children in kindergarten through second grade. Within the Pittsburgh area, YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, and Church-run after-school programs have received Christian Literacy training and materials sponsored by the Verizon Foundation. For more detailed information, go to the LEAP project website at www.literacyempowers.com.Since 2004, The Peer and Parent Reading Tutoring Program has aided children struggling with reading while enabling parents to provide additional reading help at home. Teenagers may also be trained to assist early elementary-age students who are lacking basic reading skills. Such volunteer hours of community service may be counted toward high-school graduation requirements.
ADULT BASIC LITERACY PROGRAMS
The Christian Literacy Series: The Light is Coming was designed to enable an adult to reach a functional literacy level (approximately sixth grade) with the assistance of a non-professional volunteer tutor who provides 2 one-hour periods of instruction per week. The Christian Literacy Series begins with the alphabet, teaches the 40 most common English words in context, and provides drills and stories, both secular and Bible-content, to present sound and symbol relationships. One-on-one reading tutoring utilizing The Christian Literacy Series provides literate Christians with a wonderful opportunity to share their faith.
ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (ESL) APPLICATIONS
For more than 30 years, various organizations, church groups, and missionaries have been using The Christian Literacy Series: The Light is Coming for ESL purposes with considerable success. The addition of Word and Picture Cards found in the ABC Look At Me Reading! Learning Packet have been an important advance in helping ESL students in their pursuit of the English language. Tutors utilize the Word and Picture Cards to emphasize the flow of the English language and to create simple sentence structure exercises using the forty most common English words.
TUTORING FOR SPECIAL NEEDS INDIVIDUALS
Individuals with special needs, physical, emotional, or educational, have often fallen behind or have not had the opportunity to learn to read. In situations such as these, one-on-one tutoring is simply the only way to effectively teach someone how to read. Tutors using The Christian Literacy Series: The Light is Coming have consistently and successfully taught special needs students how to read. The red print on yellow paper edition of the text has proven to be an exceptionally valuable tool for such students. Christian Literacy Associates has been helping compassionate tutors successfully teach reading skills to special needs adults and children who have special needs including hearing impairment, mild autism, William’s Syndrome, attention deficit disorders, stroke, and dyslexia. Research has shown that the human brain assimilates information best in small meaningful chunks. The sequential and incremental nature in which The Christian Literacy Series presents information takes full advantage of the brain’s natural learning tendencies. This enables students to easily learn the sounds associated with spelling patterns found in the thousand most common English words and their corresponding word families.
