Reader submission: Tell us your story

If you could accomplish, or see accomplished, one thing to further the cause of family literacy in the next five years, what would it be?

I have an idea that I think will help those children and families in urgent need of literacy skills. I had been a teacher for many years in New York and Florida, THEN decided to go into guidance and counseling.

As a middle school counselor and former classroom teacher, I have seen time and time again teachers ill-equipped to teach the basic fundamentals to students in teaching them to read. So many elementary school age children leave 5th grade entering into middle school expected to compete on a 6th grade level when in fact they are reading on 2nd and 3rd grade levels. I had the opportunity to work with such students in an program where they barely knew the sounds of the letters in the alphabet.

In the next five years I would like to see family literacy programs in targeted neighborhoods where the students need that essential skill.

— Karen