Julien's Journal September 2016 (Volume 41, Number 9) | Page 35

SEPTEMBER 2016
build fluency and comprehension through
reading, fun, and adventure. Clarke students
and instructors take the literacy needs of all
students into consideration to help maintain
reading skills over the summer.

Alvarado uses swimming pool noodles to help
students blend letters into words.

The camp is held two days a week for five
weeks during the summer. The latest camp,
which ended in July, had 119 kids attend. It
was the largest enrollments since the program’s inception. The students ranged from
kindergarten to sixth grade. During the five
weeks, Clarke provided 12 teachers to offer
individual attention and guidance to each
and every reader.
Deb Fordice, a professor and Director of
Graduate Education at Clarke, has been
involved with the University since 2003,
but has only been with the literacy camp
since 2014.

“I’m still amazed at the sparkle of the camp,
because it is still new to me. It is super hard
work – we all work so hard in the Education
Department because partnerships can take
so much work, but we’re all of the mindset
that it’s worth it. It’s the only way to learn
how to teach – to be with kids and try stuff
out and see if it works,” explains Deb.
Kristi Alvarado, Clarke Reading PDS Student,
has her students maintain a “Word Wall.”

Another component of the literacy camp is
to communicate with parents and help educate them about strategies to use with their
students at home. During the last camp,
Clarke students sent out weekly newsletters
and held two open houses to inform parents
and family members about reading strategies for successful learning and reading
outside of the school environment.
Deb explained that the most rewarding part
of being involved with the camp is that she
gets to see Clarke students actually take
what they are learning from their own studies and apply it in the classroom.

“Seeing them so confident and successful
with their education is great. I sit there and
watch and almost well-up. Those moments
make all of the hard work everyone puts in
worth it,” said Deb.
Through both the PDS partnerships and
the literacy camp with Holy Family, Clarke
University is enriching the Dubuque community by promoting lifelong learning
through literacy.
For more information about the PDS partnerships, visit www.clarke.edu/page.
aspx?id=1774. v

The K-8 teachers benefit from the added resource of college students, and ultimately, as
Paula earnestly points out, the K-8 students
gain an enormous benefit from the extra assistance and reading interventions provided
by the teachers-in-training.
“To read about teaching is one thing, but to
go work with real kids, implement those
strategies, and see what it looks like in action – that’s important. You can read about
a struggling reader, but when you are sitting
down with a struggling reader it’s a different
story,” explained Paula.

“When they are sharing, when they are actually having discussions about reading, and
they have the ‘light bulb’ moment – when
the Clarke student can see that the young
student understands – that energy is amazing to watch. It’s indescribable. The young
kid will look at the Clarke student because
they finally understand the sound of a word,
and then the Clarke student gets excited
and says, ‘Yes! You got it!’ That’s amazing,”
said Paula.

In addition to the PDS partnerships Clarke
has with schools in the community, they
offer a literacy camp through Holy Family
Catholic School. The camp is designed to

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