Since its earliest days, Eastern has trained teachers who love sharing the gift of reading. It still does. These days, the work they do has never been more important \u2014\u00a0especially for kids at risk of falling behind.<\/p>\n
Education professionals have long known that a critical part of teacher training involves real-world experience, both in the classroom and one-on-one with students.<\/p>\n \u201cCapstone\u201d programs are one way for about-to-graduate education students to gain this experience. Now in its sixth year, Eastern\u2019s \u201cliteracy capstone\u201d specializes in pairing student teachers with elementary school children looking to advance their reading and comprehension abilities.<\/p>\n The program is coordinated by Ashley Lepisi, a senior lecturer at EWU who specializes in literacy and technology. Over the past several years it has helped boost the literacy skills of more than 400 students attending Spokane\u2019s Grant and Adams elementary schools.<\/p>\n Most recently, 22 EWU students, all seniors readying for their full-time student teaching placements, spent Wednesday afternoons at Grant, where more than 90 percent of the school\u2019s 320 students qualify for free and reduced-price meals. During this winter quarter, Eagle students worked with 68 schoolchildren in grades two through five.<\/p>\n The program is a win-win, says EWU alumnus George Gessler, Grant Elementary\u2019s principal assistant. <\/span><\/p>\n EWU\u2019s soon-to-be teachers learn to understand some of the challenges present\u00a0 <\/span>in the lives of a diverse population of students, says Gessler \u201988, \u201989, \u201920. Grant\u2019s school children, meanwhile, some of whom have experienced poverty and trauma, benefit from the individual instruction \u2014 in literacy as well as in the social and emotional skills they may need to focus on learning.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey get to have people work with them; young people that are really enthralled with them,\u201d Gessler says. \u201cThey get a positive experience, and we get better readers in return. So that\u2019s been huge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n About 90 percent of participating schoolchildren demonstrate a measurable improvement in literacy skills by the end of the quarter, Lepisi adds. EWU\u2019s future educators, in turn, discover what it\u2019s like to teach in schools classified by the U.S. Department of Education as \u201cTitle 1, Part A,\u201d where a majority of students come from disadvantaged households. <\/span><\/p>\n The experience sometimes changes the trajectory of their careers. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of students say, \u2018I didn\u2019t think that I had the capacity to serve in a Title 1 building,\u2019\u201d says Lepisi. \u201cMany of them leave saying: \u2018This seems a little bit more fulfilling to me \u2014 and, actually, I\u2019d rather be in a Title 1 building now.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An EWU program helps school kids advance their literacy skills. Reading may be fundamental, but it doesn\u2019t come naturally. Learning to make sense of the written word takes patience, practice and, if you\u2019re lucky, guidance from educators who care. Since its earliest days, Eastern has trained teachers who love sharing the gift of reading.…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":2788,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-2790","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-students","stories_tags-spring-summer-2024"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_featured_image":false,"display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2797,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2790\/revisions\/2797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"EWU](\"https:\/\/test-www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2024\/06\/school_reading-300x225.jpg\")