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Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

October 12, 2005

DeKalb, Aurora elementary school children learn
to 'ROAR' with NIU Literacy Education students

DeKalb — Literacy Education students at Northern Illinois University used to catch a van at dawn so they could tutor English language learners in Chicago 's Pilsen neighborhood.

Now the growing Hispanic population in DeKalb County allows Professor Chris Carger's students to practice in local classrooms while Carger spends more of the program's limited dollars on art supplies rather than gasoline and tolls for rented vans.

Hispanic children now make up 30 percent of the enrollment in some DeKalb schools, she said, up from as little as 2 percent in the last decade.

“Our main goal is to really help English language learners to achieve literacy in English and to also have a really good feeling about their native language,” Carger said. “We no longer have to go to Chicago to get that experience.”

The program currently serves 107 kindergarten through third-grade students at the public Littlejohn and Cheeseboro elementary schools and the private St. Mary's School in DeKalb and Archbishop Romero Catholic School in Aurora .

ROAR (Reaching Out through Art and Reading ) recently gained attention in the newsletter of the Illinois Association for Multilingual and Multicultural Education, which ran a full-page article and several photographs.

It grew out of a program formerly coordinated by the NIU School of Art, which sent its students into Chicago schools that could not afford to teach art. Carger, who had come to NIU from DePaul and missed her connection with Chicago 's Hispanic children, joined in the trips with books to read aloud.

“They were beautiful books,” she said of the illustrations, “and we linked them to the art projects.”

When the program ended, Carger took ownership and amplified the literacy component. She started winning small grants to pay for the art supplies and enlisted her students in “Techniques in Tutoring” (LTRE 231 and LTRE 431) as the front line.

Students spend two hours each week in seminar, which includes selection of books and development of projects, and two hours in the elementary school classrooms.

“My students just love the program. They feel that it's really hands-on experience for them. They say when they go to their clincials, they're just light years ahead of their peers,” she said. “It's a wonderful experience for the college kids as well, in that many of them didn't know what to expect when we say ‘English language learners.' Our program really helps to break down negative stereotypes.”

Some students take Carger's class twice, once at each level, and also opt to stay involved by enrolling in the course as an independent study. Afterward, she said, some choose to work professionally with Hispanic children.

And currently, she added, they are motivated to reach into their own pockets. “Our NIU students are so generous,” she said. “They even end up buying things for the kids themselves.”

Children make butterflies with paper towels and clothes pins, and snowmen with felt. They paint frames and pictures onto square floor tiles Carger buys at Home Depot. They create puppets and put on shows.

For Halloween, they'll color faces onto small pumpkins donated by a student's employer. For Thanksgiving, they'll make turkeys by tracing their hands on construction paper and adding feathers.

Their favorite activity by far, Carger said, involves air-dry clay. When the clay hardens, they use Magic Markers to decorate their pottery or statuettes.

NIU's tutoring also features games, including the traditional flash cards with vocabulary words. Children also cut egg cartons in half, glue small pictures in each oval indention and place one marble inside. They shake the cartons, open them to see where the marble landed and then say in English what they see in the “chosen” pictures.

“It's just little stuff, all simple things, but they absolutely love it,” she said. “The teachers love it, too, because they're so bogged down with everything else.”

Most important, however, are the academic results. Pre- and post-testing of vocabulary words shows “lots of growth,” Carger said, and Hispanic college students who participate provide positive role models for the children.

The young students want to learn English, she said, and clearly appreciate the growing number of children's books in Spanish or English and Spanish. Among Carger's favorites are “The Pot that Juan Built,” by Nancy Andrews-Goebel, “Family Pictures” by Carmen Lomas

Garza and “Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey ” by Joy Cowley.

Getting to know the young students helps to shatter stereotypes that Spanish-speaking children are quiet or choose not to participate in class, she said.

“I tell my students, ‘You would be quiet, too, until you felt that you had enough understanding to get a few words out in a new language,' ” she said. “Kids just open up and try to use the English when they have books that are culturally relevant and supportive.”

Meanwhile, “mainstream” English-speaking children in the classrooms are learning Spanish during the process. Carger sometimes initiates “A Trip Around the World Through Books,” which involves looking at maps and reading books from different cultures and fosters early notions of racial equality.

“I like the mainstream kids to see those so that they don't see reflections of themselves in the books,” she said.

ROAR's continued success comes at a crucial time. Many Hispanic parents, like parents from all ethnicities, are too busy to read to their children. Some can't find books written in Spanish.

“Kids aren't being read to like they once were. TV and computers are kind of taking that over,” Carger said. “Research shows that the better readers are those who are read aloud to.”

The main concern is funding.

Books are plentiful or available at libraries, but art supplies are one-use only, and schools usually offer only construction paper, scissors and glue. “We like to do a little more than drawing,” she said. “That's where the money gets swallowed up.”

Carger has received grants from the NIU Foundation (which awarded her a 2004 Venture Grant for $12,357), the College of Education's partnership office, the Altrusa Society of DeKalb-Sycamore and the DeKalb Education Foundation. The departments of Literacy Education and Teaching and Learning both help by funding a graduate assistant.

She also contributes from her own pocket, and sometimes ponders whether to end the program.

“Every time I think of shutting down, and I go out and visit the classrooms … ,” she said, her voice trailing off. “This is such a win-win for the kids and the teachers and our tutors. I hate to think of stopping it. I just always have to look for funds.”

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