Disciple: Two Decades, One-to-One Success

How the Augustine Literacy Project is shaping lives.

By Ele Ross

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the Augustine Literacy Project® (ALP), an outreach ministry of Holy Family, Chapel Hill. Linda McDonough, founder of the project, started a program to address a critical need: tutoring services for low-income children struggling with literacy. The plan was to train volunteers who would teach reading, writing and spelling to youth whose families could not afford to pay for essential, one-to-one, research-based intervention.

During the first few years, the project was comprised entirely of volunteers and trained fewer than 10 people annually. Current executive director Debbie McCarthy was hired in 2000 in what was then a part-time role. At present, there are three staff members, including Debbie as the full-time executive director and two part-time positions. Ninety-five tutors are expected to be trained in 2014, and Augustine tutors now serve in 127 Triangle-area schools and after-school programs. To date, nearly 900 tutors have been trained by the Triangle ALP. Five training opportunities will be offered between June and October 2014 in Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill. 

SUCCESS AND A HIGHER CALLING

The ALP’s success in the Triangle led to a decision by the Chapel Hill Board of Advisors, in concert with Holy Family’s rector and vestry, to share the project’s mission, its training and its tutoring model with other communities. Replication chapters have been authorized in Asheville, Brevard, Burlington, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Hickory, Sanford, Wilson and Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; and upstate South Carolina. Tutors trained by these 11 replication chapters are now serving in 129 locations. There are six additional prospective chapters “on deck:” Clarkesville and Elberton, Georgia; and Elizabethtown, Greensboro, Morganton and Pamlico County in North Carolina.

Augustine outreach has been extended locally through three Adopt-a-School programs linking one neighborhood school with one congregation that commits to train ALP tutors. Epworth United Methodist Church partners with Hope Valley Elementary in Durham; St. Mark’s, Raleigh, led by ALP tutor and practicum coach Terry Wall, partners with Wilburn Elementary; and Crossroads Fellowship, Raleigh, partners with Brentwood Elementary. A year-long, service-learning elective for seniors at Durham Academy and Trinity Upper Schools pairs privileged young people with economically and academically disadvantaged tutees in three Durham public schools.

The ALP has grown tremendously over the past 20 years. Its success rests upon three concepts represented by the three sides of the project’s triangular logo: a long-term, trusting relationship between tutor and student; the use of multisensory, structured, phonetic methodology based on the Orton-Gillingham approach, most often associated with a one-on-one teacher-student instructional model; and intensive training and ongoing tutor support. Although the project operates in public schools and uses a secular curriculum, many tutors in the ALP army of volunteers do this work in response to the call of Jesus to serve the least of these. For them, the triangular Augustine logo carries a deeper meaning. Its three sides represent the all-encompassing love and power of the Holy Trinity.

PROVING IT WORKS

An Augustine child meets two defining criteria: low income, defined as eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch at school, and below grade-level performance in reading, writing or spelling. Augustine tutoring is offered in grades K-12 and has proven to be effective whether reading difficulties are predicated on learning differences, English as Second Language (ESL) issues or poverty, which often leads to a lack of exposure to print and enriched vocabulary. Students are referred by parents, guardians, teachers, principals, counselors, social workers and psychologists.

Over two-week training sessions, ALP tutors receive more than 70 hours of intensive instruction, including classroom and supervised practicum. Upon training completion, tutors then make a 60-lesson, pro-bono tutoring commitment in the school of the tutor’s choice. Tutoring normally takes place twice a week at the child’s school, each lesson lasting 45 minutes. The success of the program is undeniable: ALP post-test scores have met or exceeded expectations for the last 13 years. Longer-term outcomes are also becoming evident: Augustine students are more likely to remain in school, not join gangs, and find a path to productivity through the skill of literacy and a relationship with a trusted advocate and mentor, ally and friend. Though 60 pro-bono lessons are required of Augustine trainees, a majority of tutors continue beyond that minimum commitment and stay with the same student for years.

TYRELL'S STORY

The ALP slogan is “Tutor one child. Change two lives.” Tyrell’s story is just one among many lives changed by the Augustine experience. He began his work with an ALP tutor at the age of nine as a non-reading fourth grader. His mother struggled with addiction, and his father was in prison. With five younger siblings, Tyrell served as head of the family from an early age. Alongside traumatic childhood circumstances, he struggled mightily with literacy skills. Through patience, perseverance and more than three years of ALP tutoring, he learned to read. Tyrell ultimately graduated from high school and is now, at age 23, working for a nonprofit in Boulder, Colorado, the first man in his family to have no criminal record, no gang involvement and no reliance on government assistance. The caring relationship established with his tutor in childhood created a bond that remains strong today. Tyrell’s tutor, tireless advocate and friend is ALP’s executive director, Debbie McCarthy, who knows first-hand that the combination of nurture and knowledge offered by an Augustine tutor can mean the difference between prison and productivity for an at-risk student.

It is stories like Tyrell’s that make the words of tutor and ALP board member Dr. Richard Gaillard, parishioner at Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, so true when he says tutoring an Augustine child “is the best job [for which] you will never be paid.”

Ele Ross is the development and programs officer for The Augustine Literacy Project..

WHY ALP MATTERS

Alarming statistics show the critical need for literacy intervention:

• 15-20 percent of school-aged children have reading problems.
• Children do not outgrow poor reading; 74 percent of poor readers in third grade are still poor readers in 12th grade.
• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for 2013, 65 percent of North Carolina’s fourth graders score below proficient in reading. The national figure is 66 percent. Also in North Carolina, 80 percent of African-American fourth graders are below proficient, as are 77 percent of Latino students.
• Nearly half of North Carolina children with learning disabilities leave school without a diploma.
• Eighty-five percent of juvenile offenders have a reading difficulty.
• Some states base long-range budget projections for prison construction on the reading scores of second graders.

For more information on The Augustine Literacy Project, visit augustineproject.org.