Teens for Literacy®

Encouraging Students

to Promote Literacy

Teens For Literacy® program encourages inner-city middle and high school students to promote literacy in their own school or community. All the programs are carried out under the direction of committed teachers and counselors. The activities expose other students to the many rewards that reading and writing provide.

Teens for literacy Helps students promote literacy by:

Serving as mentors to their peers
Writing and Performing Plays
Designing and playing literacy games with children
Sponsoring and hosting storytellers and childrens authors

Sharing Ideas

Our students also visit Miami University several times to share ideas and interact with college students and faculty. For the team members, the experiences foster self-confidence through achievements in literacy improvement, leadership and team-work skills, and an appreciation for the excitement and challenge of college and the teaching profession.

How To Incorporate Teens For Literacy® Into Multiple Schools

Here is how we organized Teens for Literacy® in more than five schools simultaneously in southeast Ohio, where Teens for Literacy® began when Allen Berger was teaching in Miami University.

1 Go to each school with a graduate assistant to meet with the school principal and assistant principal to discuss the program
2 Go to each school with a graduate assistant to meet with the school principal's person to oversee the program in the school to discuss how students will be selected.
3 In late September, meet during the school day with school liaison and students at Miami University. During the meeting, tutoring tips would be provided to the assembled group by someone from the university’s learning center. (Nearly all students wanted to engage in tutoring either their peers or younger children, and some engaged in adults in an assisted living home near their school.)
4 The 30 or so students and school personnel (from Cincinnati, Dayton, and other places in southeast Ohio) would have the opportunity to share ideas.
5 Provide a form for each school to develop long-range plans.
6 Provide another form for each school to reveal weekly progress.
7 Visit a different school each week during the school year.
8 Teens for Literacy® students in all the schools and their liaisons came several times to Miami University. The first time was already explained (tutoring tips and general information and answering questions about the program). Another day was a Shadowing Day, during which each visiting student was paired with an undergraduate student. This takes a lot of preparation. Allen Berger used to go into university classrooms and take five minutes to invite undergraduates and gave a 3 x 5 card to those able to participate. (The undergrads had to have one of their courses to visit on Shadowing Day.) A more efficient way to obtain undergrads (Allen Berger learned from a graduate student) was through the involvement of the student chapter of the National Council of Teachers of English and the student chapter of the International Reading Association.
9 The Teens for Literacy® students arrived in the morning and engaged in many activities, including visiting a university class and walking around campus. They had lunch together (lunch tickets were provided.) In the afternoon, a representative from the Registrar’s Office talked to the visiting students explaining to them the need to keep their grades up. If so, they would have a good opportunity to be admitted to a college. We concluded Shadowing Day with each visiting student and each participating undergraduate completing a brief anonymous evaluation form—(one color for the undergraduates and another color for the visiting students).
10 During the school year, students also might visit the radio and television station on campus if they were inclined to share ideas about literacy electronically. They might also come to visit a computer lab.
11 The last meeting took place in late April, usually on a Friday before the the semester ended at the university. The visiting teens arrived around 11:30 AM, and a beautiful lunch was served in one of the university buildings. Sitting at tables with the teens and their teacher-liaisons and principals were other invited guests, including the provost, deans, department chairs, supportive colleagues, and friends. The students from each school had about ten minutes to share the highlights of their activities. All had a good time.

I share these tips hoping that Armstrong State University will be able to use them to engage more schools in the Teens for Literacy® program in and around Savannah.

Click here to learn more about How to Incorporate Teens for Literacy® into Multiple Schools by Allen Berger.

For more information about Teens for Literacy®, please go to the following links.

TEENS FOR LITERACY®

The Teens for Literacy® program was created for use by Public Schools under the direction and cooperation of Colleges or Universities which are involved in teacher training. Use of the name Teens for Literacy® in any website, publication, program, or activity must be approved by Dr. Allen Berger. Use of the name of the program for any commercial purpose is strictly forbidden. Pop-up ads DO NOT imply endorsement by Teens for Literacy®.