NSU Horizons Fall 2006

University School for children from kindergarten through fourth grade who are of average to above average intelligence and who have learning difficulties. “The program is designed to help these children think outside of the box,” Krasky said. “We’re constantly reviewing, teaching things over and again, until they understand. For a child without learning difficulties, minor repetition might be enough. But these kids need constant refreshers until they have it solid. We have to involve all the senses—be creative—in order to create new neuro-passageways.” Taking a unique approach to academic intervention, the LRA allows special education instructors and grade-level teachers an opportunity for flexible mainstreaming, explained Nadine Barnes, Ed.D., director of University School’s Lower School, where the LRA is housed. “If a child is showing promise and is excelling in a subject area in the LRA, we’re able to test him or her right into a mainstream class for part of or the whole of that subject area,” Barnes said. “Last year, we had a child who was completely immersed in the LRA classroom, but this year he’s having math with his regular second grade class.” The LRA’s reading curriculum is grounded in the Wilson Reading System, which was developed for students with issues in phonological awareness and orthographic (writing) processing. Substantiated by more than a decade of research and implemented in school districts throughout the country, the Wilson Reading System involves a daily regimen of read- ing and writing. The program demystifies the written word for children who previously had no handle on it. “The more children read, the more comfortable they become with read- ing,” Krasky said. The gains come, albeit gradually, she said. Last year, a seven-year-old boy who had absolutely no interest in reading enrolled in the LRA. He hated reading so much, he refused to even let his mother read to him. “We had to make him comfortable with the idea,” Krasky said of the boy, who was assigned to her colleague and LRA special education teacher Lisa Chancey. “He was nervous. He knew letter sounds but he didn’t know what to do with them.” So Chancey established a middle ground by first reading out loud to him. In time, he joined her reading. In October, the boy’s mother sent an email to his teachers. It said simply, “My son reads.” the baby mama clique For some children, intervention comes later in life. When Fischler School of Education professors Linda Howard, Ed.D., and Shanika Taylor, Ed.D., first visited a program for teen mothers at a Broward County school, they were surprised by what they saw. “The students were coloring illustrations of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger,” Taylor said. “The teacher would set out a horizons 23 bucket of crayons and they’d literally color. The instructor said they were making mobiles for their babies.” Added Howard, “We were troubled by what we saw. It was the equivalent of a sheltered workshop for the developmentally disabled. These were students who needed to be academically challenged, and there wasn’t enough aca- demic challenge.” Outside of the classroom, the students were known as the “Baby Mama Clique” to their classmates. The title stuck, Taylor said, and when asked, most of the girls saw their futures limited to “the mistake that led them to early parenthood.” “The message being sent to these students was, ‘You are teen parents and your life should center on parenting,’” Taylor said. With money from the President’s Research and Development Grant program, Howard and Taylor set out to change the lives of the two dozen students in that parenting class by improving their perceptions of their own efficacy, helping them realize they could improve their lives despite the obstacles before them. In order to improve perceptions of self efficacy, the professors adopted a mentoring program designed to build a social and support group for the teen mothers, foster a sense of community, and teach them about the opportunities available to them. The mentoring was a complete departure from what the students had formerly been exposed to. Over the course of the year, Taylor and Howard held group discussions and invited guest speakers who had become successful women despite their early pregnancies. “We wanted to show them other possibilities,” said Howard. “We wanted to show them people who had been teen moms, but who were also nurses, business owners, and mortgage brokers, women who had overcome their difficulties and gone on to lead very successful lives.” Howard recalls “Lisa” (not her real name), a teen mother who had no plans to attend college after graduation. On a field trip to Florida Memorial University, Lisa, who had a passion for singing, visited FMU’s choral music department. The chairman asked Lisa if she would be willing to sing a song for the group. As the department chairman accompanied on piano, Lisa closed her eyes, and in a soaring alto, sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” “When she was finished, there was not a dry eye in the room,” Howard said. “The department chairman asked Lisa if she’d made any college plans. She was astonished. For the rest of the trip, all she talked about was how this talent of hers was going to get her into a university. “Now she has something to focus on,” Howard added. “Now she has something to reach for.” n Gariot P. Louima is the managing editor of Horizons magazine.