WINONA LAKE - Monday was the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Center for Literacy & Learning at Grace College.
In welcoming everyone to the event at Mount Memorial Hall, Dr. Rachael Hoffert, executive director for the new Center for Literacy & Learning, said, “The Center began as an idea last year, and many of you here today played a part in bringing it to life. Thanks to the support of a Lilly Endowment grant, which really focuses on advancing the science of reading in Indiana, we have been able to turn those dreams into a reality.”

    Dr. Rachael Hoffert (R), executive director for the new Center for Literacy & Learning at Grace College, speaks at the grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday. Standing with her is Megan Smith, the Center’s programs and partnerships director. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

She said in a week the Center will be welcoming elementary students.
“And our mission is to empower readers and leaders. We aim to inspire not only the elementary students at our tutoring center, but also the teacher candidates, who will go out into our community, into the classrooms and who will make a difference,” Hoffert stated.
Megan Smith, programs and partnerships director for the Center, explained that they built this initiative on three main pillars: teacher leader preparation, classroom application and community engagement.
“We understand the importance of preparing our teacher candidates to teach reading, and, therefore, we have carefully gone through the literacy courses to ensure that they’re aligned to the research,” Smith said. “We’re giving them time to practice their knowledge in classrooms with real-life experiences, and we’re so thankful for our partnership with Jefferson Elementary School right here on our campus, and them joining us in this initiative.”
She said this gives Grace’s teacher candidates time with expert teachers, receiving coaching and gaining valuable classroom experiences.
“We are sincerely thankful because Jefferson Elementary has officially joined us as a lab partner for our college students,” Smith said.
Jefferson Principal Josh Wall said, “When they approached us about this at Jefferson, we said we are so grateful - gratitude is our word. Thank you so much to Grace for coming alongside us and partnering.”

    Grace College President Dr. Drew Flamm speaks Monday at the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Center for Literacy & Learning. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

He brought students Christian Samayoa and Mateo Lopez-Garcia with him for the ribbon-cutting, who were more than excited to be there, along with several members of the Jefferson staff and Warsaw Community Schools leadership.
“We’re just so thankful for the partnership that Jefferson Elementary and Grace College have started up formally together. It’s been a shining example of how our community can really work together and shape the future of our children,” Wall said. “So, through this Science of Reading initiative, this has been transformative for both Grace College and Jefferson Elementary. We’ve seen first hand the difference that this work can do in the lives of our students. Not only are we helping them become confident, skilled leaders, but we’re also inspiring a love of learning that will last a lifetime for our students.”
He thanked everyone who was involved with making the partnership a success, the dedicated staff at Jefferson Elementary, the Grace College students and the whole community wrapped around Grace and Warsaw Community Schools.
Smith said, “We all share a collective responsibility to teach our students in this community how to read. For some, reading can be difficult and may need additional support, and that’s why at the Center for Literacy & Learning we are excited to have a tutoring center. We have had five student candidates this summer doing over 30 hours of training to earn their dyslexia specialist certification, and they will be starting to tutor next week.”
Those students, and the student center lead, were acknowledged with a round of applause for preparing to get the Center started this week.
One of those Grace students is Lilly Cardenas, a third-year elementary education major with a visual arts concentration.
Explaining why she wanted to be a tutor for the program, she said, “As a kid, I really enjoyed reading. It was one of the only places I felt like I could fit in, and I think every child deserves to have that feeling of being able to transform themselves when they’re reading a book. I think that’s really important.”
She learned a lot from the training.
“With the training you learn about the science of reading and how to teach kids how to read better, but most importantly students with dyslexia. So we learned how to identify those students and how to teach them the best way we possibly can,” Cardenas said.

    Jefferson Elementary School Principal Josh Wall (R) speaks Monday during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Grace College’s Center for Literacy & Learning. Standing with him are Dr. Rachael Hoffer (C), the Center’s executive director, and Megan Smith, the Center’s programs and partnerships director. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

As college students, she said they take literacy courses that help them for their licensing exams, “and having the knowledge that I do from taking these trainings has already helped me so much in my literacy courses, and I think it will help us a lot when we take our licensing exam.”
Cardenas said a lot of schools today are looking for teachers who have knowledge in the science of reading. “So I think that gives us a step up in the hiring process after graduating, and I think it will give us a lot of good knowledge as teachers, which I think is important,” she said.
Before offering a prayer at the end of the ceremony, Grace President Dr. Drew Flamm said, “It’s one thing to write a grant, and Dr. Hoffert and Megan, the School of Education, put in a lot of time to write a grant. They received it. It’s another thing to implement a grant, and so to see that come to fruition today, I think we need to give a big congratulations to Megan, to Dr. Hoffert and to our School of Education for all their hard work.”
He said being the son of an elementary education teacher, Monday’s ceremony was a meaningful moment for him. His mom now has her dyslexia certification and serves in a center just like the one now at Grace College in another town.
“So to see us now and be able to serve the kind of kids that my mom already serves on a daily basis, I’ve got kids at Jefferson Elementary, so to know the impact of that elementary and the impact of our students in that context, is amazing to me and I know that it will have an impact on so, so many,” he stated.

    A wall inside the Center for Literacy & Learning is shown. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

In an interview after the ceremony, Hoffert said this week the Grace students will be going into schools to do some assessments. Then next week, the Center will be officially bringing those students from the elementaries after school to Mount Memorial Hall at Grace College for tutoring. While Jefferson students will be able to walk over, Warsaw Schools will bus over others, with parents picking the students up after tutoring.
“We’re starting with a small pilot of about 40 kids in our local school district, and then we hope to expand, but we want to start with a pilot,” she said.
“The need we really saw is that we want every child in Kosciusko County to be a proficient reader. And we know there is a need because for some reading is very difficult, and we want to offer that extra boost of instruction to give them that lifetime skill,” Hoffert said.
The Center is offering low-cost tutoring. While it’s starting with the pilot program, Hoffert said, “Later, we will open up more to the community, but we’re going to do everything we can to keep the cost very low.”
On the Grace students taking part in the initiative, she said, “We’re so proud of them. They really are just some of our top students.”
Hoffert said they hope to offer tutoring next summer as well as during this school year, maybe even some reading camps. “We’ll just kind of see how it evolves,” she said.
To learn more about the Center for Literacy & Learning or to inquire about how to get involved, email [email protected].
To learn more about the Lilly Endowment Inc. Advancing the Science of Reading in Indiana initiative, visit lillyendowment.org/reading/.