No Summer Slide with Literacy Now!

Jacque Daughtry is the CEO of Literacy Now and Jacklyn Wilson is their Chief Operating Officer. They discuss their programs that fight the "summer slide" student experience from being away from school for 2 months and how their other volunteer driven programs, including the Lunch Bunch, help elevate the catastrophically low literacy rate amongst Harris County children. You can get involved: www.literacynowhouston.org 

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic affairs show at iHeartMedia Broadcast. Our
disclaimer says that the opinions express onthis show do not necessarily reflect those hell
by this radio station, its managementstaff, or any of its advertisers.
My name is Laurent I am theTexan from France, and I know I

(00:27):
have the full support of everyone tohear at iHeartMedia because I'm welcoming back the
organization Literacy Now one of the bestorganizations to talk about how we're allowing a
lot of children to pass through ourschool system without learning how to read,
which may be the most paralyzing attributeyou can give to a child if what
you want for them is a prosperityand a nice family home with a backyard.

(00:51):
If you can't read, or evenif you're just barely proficient in some
reading, you can't really get jobsin which paperwork is involved. And you
can imagine just how paralyzing that is. And it's all the more frustrating to
me because I know how much moneyexists in Houston, and I also happen
to know from personal experience that thereis absolutely no lack of talent as far

(01:14):
as finding great teachers. So thefact that some thirty percent of third graders
who go into the fourth grade canread and all the others are having trouble
reading or can maybe can't read atall, seems to be a timebomb of
catastrophic proportions. And we're going totalk about it a little bit this morning.
We're going to talk about Literacy Now'ssummer slide program and a cool announcement

(01:38):
coming up. Jackie Daughtry is theCEO of Literacy Now and Jacqulynn Wilson is
their COO Chief Operating officer. Thewhole time you're listening to us, you
can go to their beautifully designed website, Literacynow Houston dot org. Literacy Now
Houston dot org. I'm gonna haveto stop saying that nonprofitable organizations have beautifully

(02:00):
designed websites, because that used tobe rare, and that's why I kept
mentioning and saying, hey, you'llactually enjoy going and donating to this one.
They'll even send you a letter thankyou for your donation. But these
days, obviously it's gotten a lotbetter. And by the way, that's
one way to get involved with LiteracyNow. They need support, they need

(02:21):
to turn on the lights in thebuilding and hire the people and pay them
for the work they do. Jackie, you mentioned before we started talking that
you have some sixty employees. Wedo. We have sixty three employees our
program delivery staff, which is aboutfifty issh of those are part time and
the rest are either full or almostfull time. So what do you mean

(02:45):
by program delivery staff? Are thosethe ones that go out and teach.
Those are the ones that go outand either do our reading express for the
little biddies prior preschoolers and their parents, or the ones that do our reading
intervention program in the schools throughout Houston. You should tell us what literacy now
is and what it does. Ohgosh, okay, go back to basics.

(03:07):
I'm so used to talking to youthat I forget this is important information.
So we have been around now seventeenand a half years serving students that
are struggling readers. Our students withoutthe extra attention that we give them,
they really don't have access to serviceslike private tutoring or you know the like,

(03:32):
because of the families that they arepart of, or low income families,
and so we really have always wantedto ensure that every child has access
to high quality instruction with instructors thatare really value and love and respect that

(03:54):
child and their families as well.So our goal is always that children would
be reading on or maybe even abovegrade level by third grade. How difficult
is that to achieve for a normalkid, which is the vast majority of
kids. In other words, Ilike to say, there's nothing wrong with
the raw material. The kids arefine. It's what we expose them to

(04:16):
that is the problem. You've hiton it exactly. It's lack of exposure.
And so the children, for themost part, the children that we
serve, really if they'd had opportunities. Again, there's some economic issues there.
They didn't go to preschool, orthey didn't go to like mother's day

(04:36):
out at the church, or andtheir parents often are working multiple jobs,
and perhaps their parents don't have ahigh level of literacy either. And so
having books in the home, yes, is really I mean that costs a
lot of books. You know,a lot of money for books. So

(05:00):
just having access to experiences, whetherit's going to the Children's Museum or going
down to Galveston or going to thezoo, all of those things cost money.
Yeah, right, And so nothaving that really well developed vocabulary and
just language development skills. Nothing wrongwith the child, as you say,

(05:23):
the raw material is great, it'sjust a lack of exposure. And so
that's why we focus on young childrenbecause we want to get them and you
know, so that they can reallydevelop their full potential and not you know,
think about your little five year oldchild. People say, oh,
how could a kindergartener be behind.They're in kindergarten, they couldn't be behind

(05:45):
yet, Well, yeah, theycould be behind. And I don't care
if you're five years old or not. You know, you're behind when you
see other kids, and how doyou feel about yourself, you know,
And so that can lead to alot of problems if not then later as
well. So we're really passionate aboutaccess for all children to have access to

(06:09):
really high quality programming that is deliveredby really passionate and caring and loving trained
staff trained in the science of reading. That's the key. I've read countless
articles mentioning that just having books inthe house so that the kids, when
they're toddlers, when they see theirparents holding books and reading, they're going

(06:30):
to do this exact same thing.Monkey Sea Monkey do. That's what we
are. Just we're a species thatlooks at the others and we do what
the others do. And we've allseen those pictures of the little toddler barely
able to hold the book and it'supside down, and they're just kind of
going through the motions of turning thepages, and you'll think to yourself,
well, obviously they're not reading.Well no, But at the same time,

(06:50):
what they're doing is getting used tothat activity and they're going to want
to do it. And as youmentioned, for a poor family who can
barely make the rent, they're goingto cut out food to make the rent
because the rent is not an elasticpiece of the budget. You can eat
a little less as long as youmake the rent, because otherwise you'll be

(07:11):
homeless. And obviously buying books isn'tgoing to be a part of your budget,
just not going to do it.And I wonder if access to the
Houston Library, for instance, isn'tsomething that we're also overlooking. We have
a fantastic public library. Everybody wholives in Houston can get a free library
card. For those of us whohave cell phones, I consume a boatload

(07:34):
of audio books and much of themcomes straight from the Houston Public Library.
I just log in, I siftthem by what's available. No, oh,
there's a biography of someone I hadnever considered. Listening to Boom you
downloaded. It's absolutely amazing. Butit also means that any parent who's motivated
enough can go to their local branchand pick up some books. You get

(07:54):
to borrow them for a couple ofweeks. You can extend them if you
want to keep them. But thatmeans that having books in the house is
actually something that is possible. SoI guess as an advertisement for the Houston
Public Library and others, because there'sa bunch of neighborhoods that have little libraries
on their street corners. I livein such a neighborhood. You can put
in a book and grab a book, and that that's one way to just

(08:16):
pick up a book and take ithome. And we actually have those that
We've had volunteers, a lot ofcorporate partners and some Scouts and things like
that. We have done those forus throughout town at places where we serve.
But you know, when I'll letJaqueline chime in on this Houston Public

(08:37):
Library plus Harris County Public Library outsideof the City of Houston. And yes,
they're both wonderful, but you haveto have what transportation Jacqueline, grab
the mic and bring it towards youa little bit. Yeah, yeah,
you have to have transport. Transportation, yeah, and so and the time
to get there, like if yourshift you get out of two am,

(08:58):
you can't do that. And thelibrary hours have been way shortened since COVID,
and I think one of the uniquethings that libraries do offer they have
mobile programs that go into the community. And so when before we got on
air, we were talking about theReading Express program, which we partner with
Harris County Public Library and we goto different communities within Harris County. The

(09:20):
idea of having access to online booksis great because, like you, I
have a love of audio books,and so we do actually work with the
library to have parents apply for librarycards within the program as well too.
But having a physical book, especiallyfor little kid a little wait, you
need the physical book? Yeah,sure. Also, reading is very different
from listening there is they're not exactlyequivalent. You get more out of actually

(09:45):
physically reading because you have to giveit one hundred percent of your attention with
the audiobook, it's a whole loteasier to wander off. Now, Hey,
I'll admit sometimes I have to goback to pages when I'm reading a
physical book because I realize that I'vebeen thinking about my day or something.
So wait a minute, who isthis character that's familiar? Well, but
it's part of reading, and it'sand when you to not know the pleasure

(10:07):
of having a book sitting on youron your desk that you just want to
get back to because you absolutely wantto know what the next chapter is going
to bring. You know, withsome some of the greatest tories tellers out
there, it's a it's criminal thatwe're not trying to spread that to more
kids more systematically. You are listeningto Houston PA Houston's Public Affairs show.

(10:28):
My name is Laurent. My guestsare from Literacy Now. Jacqueline Wilson is
their chief operating officer and Jackie Daughtryis their CEO. Literacy Now is online
at Literacy Now Houston dot, rgLiteracy Now Houston dot or rg. Uh.
Let's talk about your summer slide program. Actually, I want to mention

(10:50):
Jacqueline, you are a you're aneducator by trade. That's how you started,
right, You were a teacher first. Yes, I taught early child
education as a pre kindergarten teacher inOklahoma. Yeah, and so I guess
reading is a huge part of that, if not half of it is it
is, it's a huge part ofthat. Actually, So you bring that
experience into literacy now and you canapply what you've learned. What are we

(11:13):
missing? I don't understand why itis that we're allowing kids not to learn
how to read when we like youmentioned the science of teaching how to read,
that's something we've got down pat Weknow how to do it. We
can even teach old people who don'tknow how to read, and we do
it. Act. In fact,you mentioned shame, I want to say
that there shouldn't be any shame thatthere's so many great organizations in town.

(11:35):
And if you need more information onthat, you can just send me an
email textan from France at gmail dotcom. It's actually fairly easy. It
doesn't matter how old you are.It doesn't take that much time, and
it's never too late to open thatdoor and be able to just be reading
proficient. Absolutely, So, Jacqueline, what is the summer slide program.
I can tell from the title you'retrying to keep the kids from forgetting everything

(11:58):
they learned in the past year,exactly exactly. So it's not necessarily a
program that we offer, but weprovide resources and tips that we share out
to all of our families throughout ourprograms on things that they could be doing
during the summer to prevent the summerslide. And it could be very simple
things that you can think of,like even going outside. Jackie mentioned having
exposure to things even going outside,reading a book outside under the tree,

(12:22):
or even building or language and whatthey're exposed to. One of the things
that I truly enjoy with my daughteris we do field trips and this is
zero dollars free field trips. Goingto the grocery store. It could be
a field trip for younger children.Building on vocabulary, as you mentioned,
identifying letters as you're walking down theaisle at the grocery store. Are different

(12:46):
things to exposure. Doing cooking activitiesat home, and you can also intertwine
math into that when you're using measuringcups and so those are different things that
could be exposure to learning to wherethey are not missing any opportunities by exposing
them revisiting things that you've done throughoutthe year. Also worth mentioning is that

(13:07):
Houston is one of the best citiesin the world as far as museums are
concerned. And I don't think there'san exception to this. All the museums
are open for free on Thursday atleast for a few hours. And I
know for sure that the Children's Museum, which is the coolest playground in town.
It's beautiful. They've applied a DisneyWorld philosophy to how beautifully designed their

(13:31):
expositions are. They're all please touchthis exhibit type of exhibits, unlike you
know the Arts Museum. But they'reopen for free completely in the evening and
you don't have to do anything butshow up. And it's pretty convenient if
you're out there, you know,you're working all day long. You can

(13:52):
still take your kid and they havea health food bar like they're they just
you know, it's one of theplaces and adjustment to it is a health
museum, which is also a tonof fun. Talk about field trip with
that, it would actually compel youto want to read because you're going to
want to say, well, isthis mom to learn more about it exactly.
So basically, the summer Slide programis literacy now facilitating other programs to

(14:18):
help kids keep up on their readingskills. Right, So we also partner
with we're partnering this summer with acouple of other school districts and charter schools
where we're meeting with some of thosestudents who might be in summer school or
doing a summer enrichment program at thoseschools. And so we're also doing our
reading intervention program during the summer forthose three campuses that we're working with the

(14:39):
summer and so, and it couldbe anywhere from four to six weeks,
depending on the school that we're workingwith. But that's another program that we're
you're an extension through our school yearprogram to help prevent the summer slider or
any memory loss over the summer.Does it work, learning losxcuse me.
It does work. It's effective.Yeah, it's affected. For as I
look at it, it's intense programmingthat we're doing in a short amount of

(15:01):
time typically throughout the year. We'remeeting with those students anywhere from twenty five
to twenty six weeks to where andwithin four to six week we're still doing
our program, but it's very intensein that short amount of time. You
mean you do the year program overthe summer. Correct, you can check
any time. We sure can seethat. That goes back to what I
was saying. We know how todo this. We've got the science down

(15:22):
pat and we can actually you cando it in a leisurely pace or you
can just concentrate it. Which onesdo the kids like best? Which one
do you think is best? They'reboth great. I think the throughout the
school year. Jackie mentioned about havingpassionate instructors there, and I think for
us, when we're there throughout theschool year, they're building those relationships.

(15:43):
Initially, in the beginning of theyear, there might be a wall that's
put up, but once they getto know who their intervention is, that
wall slowly comes down. And thenwe're also building relationships with their parents or
caregivers. And so we have theyear to build that relationship and provide parents
and families with resources that they canalso use as well an extension to our
program at home, and so they'regetting a piece of what we're doing at

(16:06):
home with their families. Yeah,this is a thorny subject. But I
happen to know that it's a partof the problem from from from what I
read, Uh, there are parentswho, because of their own education,
cannot always be supportive of their children. So when the kids get home,
they don't necessarily have a parent thereto encourage them to do their homework or
to pursue the continuing education. Theschool is really just kind of like a

(16:27):
starter. It's supposed to be kickstartingyou into a life of constant education.
We should we should keep learning.That's that's why grown ups like to read
the news and science papers. We'rewe're interested in that information and learning about
what advances are happening. When youwork with the parents, how does that

(16:48):
work? Are most of them happyto be instructed? I mean, after
all, you're you're you're having toteach them too, right, Yeah,
absolutely absolutely. I can talk aboutit from two different perspective. When we're
looking at our Reading Express program,that program parents have to be there.
So as we are doing the lessons, we're actually empowering the parents. We're
demonstrating to them and they do theactivities with their children they're in that program.

(17:12):
And then for parent engagement with ourreading intervention program. We're doing tips
and tricks that they can use athome with basic items that we actually give
them so they don't have to purchasethem. We're giving them what we call
them literacy kits with ample resources manipulativesthat they can use at home, with
a guide that follows everything that theyneed with the materials that we perforce.

(17:33):
So give us an example. IfI open that box, what am I
going to find in it? That'sa good question. So we have different
color posts and it could be ayellow, green, and blue if we're
talking about beginning, middle, andending sound, and so the yellow one
can be for the beginning, thegreen can be for the middle, and
the other one can be for theending sound and how to break those sounds
up when we're doing syllable isolation.And so that's an example of how they

(17:57):
can use that. If they havebet that has three different colors, the
B is the beginning, the isthe middle, and the D is the
end, and so that is somethingthat we provide them with. The post
its a marker and how they canbreak that up. And we also do
like red solo cups with the sameconcept as well. Cool so it's really
fun and interactive and easy. AndI have to brag about our instructional coach

(18:19):
Audrey, who put a parent Resourceguide together that you know, everybody has
their phone, it has the QRcodes and they can scan it and see
like a little video of things thatI mean real short, you know,
little clips that they can do,but they're videos. That's super useful because

(18:40):
obviously if you have parents who themselvescannot read video English and Spanish, and
so it's really I mean, I'mreally proud of that. It's like incredibly,
it's it's really an amazing tool.And we don't we want we always
try to take away barriers, whetherit's insportation. That's why we go to

(19:03):
where people are or the finances.That's why we give the children choose books
you know that they get to takeand keep from us every year, and
we give the parents the supplies todo the activities that we're suggesting. So
does I have to conclude from thatthat you're also helping the parents who are

(19:25):
illiterate or functionally illiterate. You're teachingthem how to read too, right,
I mean, they're going to beable to catch up in some ways if
they're doing the activities with their children. Let's say they come from a different
country, they don't know how toread. Inevitably, they're going to learn
something too, right to me,Yes, I agree, they're learning along
with their children. Yeah. Absolutely. I attend some of the parent engagement
workshops and the parents always reach outto the interventionist with a note in the

(19:48):
class dojo app of a level ofexcitement of something that they did with their
children. So you're constantly improving it, basically, absolutely, you have to
instantly improving. We and our stafflearns from each other. You know,
they maybe at a side, youknow, on this side of town,
somebody else on that side of town, and they share things when they come
together at monthly staff meetings of what'sworking over there, and that helps,

(20:11):
you know, the others learning fromeach other. Yeah, so's it's really
a very fluid, you know.Always we're not stuck, you know,
we're not stuck in how we dothings. You are listening to Houston,
PA Houston's Public Affairs Show. Myname is Laurent and my guests are here
from Literacy Now. Jackie Daughtry istheir CEO and Jacqueline Wilson is their Chief

(20:34):
operating officer. Although not for long. I was in the elevator when they
announced to me that there's going tobe a big change. I guess,
Jackie, it's really it's your changeto tell us about. But Jacqueline is
going to take over. It is. So after a couple of years really
have thought in prayer, it reallybecame clear to me that it was time

(20:56):
for me to pass the baton,if you will. I've been at the
Helm since our beginning seventeen and ahalf years, and it's been the joy
and privilege of my life. Honestly, for real, it's part of me.
But it's time to let the nextgeneration, you know, take it
to the next level. Even andJacqueline has been with us for six and

(21:21):
a half years in multiple roles,and we've been actually preparing for this change,
for her to take the CEO rolesince last August. So I'm not
leaving. I'm not quite ready toleave yet, and I'm very grateful that
she's not given me the boot orour boards, not getting wait until she

(21:41):
takes control that I will be workinglesser hours, lesser responsibility, but I'll
be doing I love it all.But my real passion is building relationships and
partnerships, So I'll be the donorand partner relations liaison, and I'm really

(22:03):
excited about that to really be ableto bring more funding in because you got
to have money. I mean,let's just be real. And also partnerships
for programs and things like that.And we work really well together, and
so I'm excited to see what she'sgoing to do. I'm excited for the

(22:23):
organization and seven about seven weeks togo, and it's going to be strange,
but I'm very happy that it's someonein her in particular from inside the
organization that was much easier for thestaff to you know, to swallow.

(22:45):
Yeah, because we have a culturethat's very even though we have sixty three
employees, it's very family like.That's our culture of really knowing one another,
caring, supporting one another. Andshe definitely bodies that, and so
otherwise I wouldn't have suggested her forthe job. Well, Jacqueline, if

(23:06):
you've been working on it for abouta year, is this mostly just internal
leadership problems and challenges not problems challenges? Yeah, I would say so.
Honestly, I'm just shadowing Jackie forthe past almost Yeah, ten and a
half months and then meeting different stakeholdersthat I typically would not have interacted with,
and so it's been an honor justbeing I mean, we work,

(23:30):
as she mentioned, work well together, but shadowing her through a different lens
and working closely with the board hasbeen really eye opening and great as well
too. Well. Congratulations, thankyou. It sounds like as well deserved.
Your daughter. Does she know yet? She knows. She's excited,
excited. She's like, mom,what does this mean? So she's excited,
she's very excited. It's really funnybecause my daughter's My daughter's two years

(23:53):
younger than her then, Jacqueline,but we have granddaughters in my little one
that's almost she well, the olderone that's almost eleven, she's like,
no, gg, I like foryou to be the big boss. I'm
like, Okate, it's fine.They you know, but Abby said to
me the other the little one says, real serious. She came right up

(24:15):
to my face. How's the newCEO working out? I forgot to tell
you? And I said, well, she hadn't taken over yet, but
she's gonna. But everything's going great. She's so hilarious. How's the new
CEO working out? How old isshe she's almost eight. Okay, so

(24:37):
hilarious her personality. So she's theFrench call the seventh year the age of
reason. Oh okay, I haveno idea why, but in fact is
after that's that's usually followed by theteenage years, and I think the teenageers
seems to be bereft of reason too. Well, there is some of that,

(24:59):
actually, jack getting into that withher daughter. I just spent a
weekend with a bunch of teenagers duringa family reunion, and I have high
hopes for the future. I thinkwe're gonna be just fine there. Every
every generation criticizes the next and blamesthe previous one. It's just a cycle
of life, and it turns andwe keep progressing in the right direction,

(25:21):
you know, up and down,up and down, but generally trending upwards.
So I think that we're going tobe okay. We talked about the
Reading Express and the Summer Slide program, but there's another program that I think
is really cool, and that's theLunch Brunch. Who wants to tell us
about that? Was it your idea, Jackie? Well, actually, we've
been doing a precursor to that,and I actually used to facilitate that back

(25:44):
in the old days. That's howyou started. That was one of our
We've had something similar to that fora long time at well previously we were
known as making it better and thatwas something I personally loved doing, is
having the small group. And I'mgoing to now go back to that,
probably next the next school year,which will be fun. So what is

(26:10):
the lunch brunch? How does itwork? Unch bunch, lunch, bunch
back, not brunch. I misspelledit in my nose. Unch, So
kind of as it said the namesuggests. We have volunteer mentors that go
in during the school day into thekids' school and have lunch with them,
not in the lunch room because that'stoo much chaos, but in a separate

(26:32):
spot. And so it's one adultto four children, third, fourth and
fifth graders. And our goal isthat they would start with the child in
third grade and continue with them,assuming the child stays at that school through
fifth grade. And we've had,you know, we've had a lot of
that, and it's a blessing forthe adults and for the children. So

(26:53):
JACKI and why don't you tell themsort of what our curriculum looks like.
So it's an end house curriculum.We have a curriculum that they can follow
if they choose to. But asthey start building the mentors start building the
relationship with their students, they mightdo something else that's more that meets the
needs of those group of students.But what we're really working on is for

(27:15):
them to have positive relationships with adults, working on communication, skills, self
esteem, and so those are thethings that encompasses. So it's not just
reading, it's sort of life skills. Extra yeah, life skills, which
is super important. There was aviral video of a young man teaching young
boys how to introduce themselves correctly.Did you see that? And how effective

(27:40):
it is that The fact that alot of young people, girls and boys
will you know, kind of weaklyshake your hands and not make eye contact
and mumble their name, and thatis not going to be conducive to you
getting a great job either. You'regoing to get passed over for a candidate
who can do that better. Andyou can watch this young man teach these
boys how to do it well andit's like, well it takes ten minutes,

(28:03):
they get it right away, butthey'll walk through the classroom with pride
head held up eye contact, agood handshake, and slowly and loudly say
their names and it's like so it'sstuff like that basically pretty much encompasses stuff
like that and then going up theladder as you as you can progress starting
the basic So the Lunch Bunch isbasically a bunch of volunteers, right,

(28:26):
that's an opportunity for somebody listening tothe show, going, hey, I
could do that. It is.We have a full time staff person that's
over that program as well as someother things, yeah, you know,
to make sure everything rents smoothly,but otherwise it's volunteers. And so their
commitment is once a week basically Octoberthrough April, give or take. And
there's a training session. Yes,there's a training session. And then so

(28:49):
for those who are listen, ifyou're interested, it's a great opportunity.
Maybe you and your best friend orsomeone in your book club can sign up
to be mentors and share the responsibilitiestogether for the school year. So you
can go to Literacy Now Houston dotorg to get information on that. If
you want to be a member ofthe Lunch Bunch. Man that's like the
Wild Bunch, but you know,Tamer and cooler and cooler and more useful

(29:15):
too. So literacynow Houston dot org. Literacynow Houston dot org. And if
you have any questions related to Houston, PA, you can just send me
an email. Texan from France atgmail dot com. Texan from France at
gmail dot com. I want tothank you for listening and caring about the
issues I put on this show.Folks. You know, if we can

(29:37):
just teach these young people how toread, they'll take care of the rest
of it themselves. They'll go throughschool, they'll do well, and for
those who are poor, they'll endup breaking the cycle of poverty and instead
of living in a very small apartmentpiled up with their siblings, many of
who I'm sleeping on the floor.That's another subject you talk about, For
instance, with the Houston Furniture Bank, they'll break the cycle of povert and

(30:00):
their children won't even see any ofthat, because once the cycle of poverty
is broken, generally speaking, itremains broken and people keep prospering. And
that's the real American dream as faras I'm concerned, and I speak as
a Frenchman, so folks, I'llsee you next week. At the same
time, thank you for listening.My name is laurent I am the Texan

(30:21):
from France and this has been HoustonPA, Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong