Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for March 29, 2007 WSIU PICKED AS LITERACY SITE

From the Southern Illinoisan...

Reaching out to children

BY CALEB HALE, THE SOUTHERN

CARBONDALE - WSIU Public Broadcasting at Southern Illinois University Carbondale is one of 10 pilot sites selected for a nationwide literacy initiative in partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Department of Education.

Local WSIU representatives and university officials will gather in Studio A of the SIUC Communications Building at 5:30 p.m. today to announce and celebrate their participation in the Ready to Learn literacy initiative.

Jayne James, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's executive director for Ready to Learn, also will speak at the event.

The new literacy initiative combines PBS KIDS programming with related multimedia content to help children in child care centers, ages 2 through 8, at risk of falling behind in reading skills.

CPB initially chose five affiliate stations in 2006 to participate in the initiative. This year WSIU is being added, along with stations in Alabama, New York, Pennsylvania and California.

Beth Spezia, WSIU's outreach coordinator in early childhood education, said Carbondale is by far the smallest market to participate in the program yet.

"For this new literacy initiative we are indeed more rural and smaller than the other sites that have been selected," Spezia said. "I'm sure part of it has to do with the demographic profile of our region."

Spezia said CPB is looking for areas that have particularly high populations of needy families with children at risk of failing in education.

WSIU Executive Director Candis Isberner, in a press release, stated the station has a long tradition of helping with early childhood education.

"This new literacy initiative from Ready to Learn will allow the child care community and WSIU to expand our efforts to improve children's literacy among at-risk families in our service area," she said.

Monica Tichenor, promotions and marketing director for WSIU, said the station was started in 1961 with instructional family and school programming in mind. Adding a multimedia element to the lineup only makes the mission stronger, she added.

"It's a huge coup for us to be part of this literacy initiative," Tichenor said.

Spezia said the new program is exciting because, for the first time, the station will be working with industry experts to develop criteria using research from the U.S. education department.

Second, she said the station will have access to types of media games, toys and books used to supplement lessons planned in the initiative.