Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 1, Page 13 Fall 1991 'Reach out and teach someone.' That's the challenge issued by the Student Literacy Corps to University of Delaware undergraduates. Designed for all undergraduates, regardless of their major fields of study, the Student Literacy Corps will certify students as literacy providers, allowing them to share their education with those who need help in learning to read and write. Based on the Peace Corps concept, the Student Literacy Corps was developed under a U.S. Department of Education grant by Sylvia Farnham-Diggory, H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Educational Studies and Psychology. Students who participate take a six-credit, two-semester course taught by Marilyn Pare, who also conducts adult literacy classes at the University. The literacy picture in the United States is bleak, Farnham-Diggory said. According to The Reading Report Card, a survey from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 6 percent of 9-year-olds could not do rudimentary reading exercises and 40 percent of 13-year-olds did not have intermediate reading skills. At the high school level, 95 percent cannot read well enough to handle college-level books. The picture in Delaware is no less bleak: 61,000 Delawareans read below the fourth grade level; one-third of the adult population has not finished high school; one-sixth has less than an eighth grade education; and 70 percent of Delaware's prison inmates have not finished high school. During the first semester of training, students learn teaching methods. The following semester they go out into the schools and community as interns, under supervision, to put their knowledge to work. The techniques they learn in class can serve them all their lives, as volunteers in the community, as parents and as teachers, Pare said. Although more than 200 colleges and universities have been given grants to develop the Student Literacy Corps, the University's program can serve as a model for other schools because of three components, according to Farnham-Diggory. One is the Intensive Literacy Instruction course, based on the program developed by the Reading Study Center in the College of Education. Designed for students of all ages, the program currently is being used in many local elementary classrooms, in the Reading Study Center and in evening classes for college students and has proved to be very successful in teaching the basics of reading, writing, spelling and composition, Farnham-Diggory said. In addition to classroom training, students will be part of a support network during their practicum, learning to become instructors under trained teachers in internships in schools, community centers, churches and libraries. Outstanding students may be eligible for paid positions when they have completed their training. The third requirement is scholarly. Each student is required to select a professor in his or her academic area as a mentor and write a paper, under supervision, relating the corps training to that discipline. A future goal of the Student Literacy Corps, according to Pare, is to structure the program to help those whose primary language is not English. Chris Brannock, a junior majoring in English and secondary education, gives the program high marks. "The course has helped me to recognize difficulties students may be having and has taught me how to help them. The crux of the training is that it teaches a reliable system that really works," she said. --Sue Swyers Moncure