Helping Memphis kids become better readers
Jackie Flaum spends week after week inside Shelby County Schools helping second-grade students become better readers. It is something she has been invested in for seven years.
In 2011, she and members of Germantown United Methodist Church were helping out with special events at Caldwell-Guthrie Elementary School, and they wanted to do more.
Flaum, a former reporter and public relations writer in Connecticut, said she approached the principal and said they wanted to be involved on a deeper level. After months of waiting, the principal called and said he had an idea for further investment. From that de-
sire to serve deeper, “Team Read“was born.
The program is for second-graders, as that time is essential for students to learn sight words — words they do not have to think about and are memorized.
Teachers pick students who are on the cusp of being great readers to spend a half-hour twice a week with a reading coach. The students spend time with their coaches during time they would normally be at their desk doing independent work.
“It’s really a God thing,” Flaum said of how it all came together. “The people I (volunteer) with are not educators.”
She said the coaches each come for an hour and spend 30 minutes with one child, and then 30 minutes with another. Students get an hour of individualized time per week to help improve their reading.
“It’s convenient,” Flaum said, adding there are many options that make it convenient for volunteers. “It’s so rewarding, especially for people who think they aren’t teachers.”
Flaum said the children cause her to return weekly, year after year, but she does not want people to think she does this as a “goody two shoes” or has “selfish” motivations.
“If I’m not there for them now, they won’t be there for me later,” she said. “I’m going to need a heart surgeon and a legal professional and a dryer repairman, and it might be in a second-grade student struggling to read.”
Now the program has more than 1,200 volunteers in more than 50 schools. The volunteers come from many churches and synagogues.
“It’s the most ecumenical group in Shelby County,” Flaum said.
Flaum praised congregations like Bellevue Baptist and Hope Church, which have joined the movement by giving time and donating resources needed for the group to carry out its mission.
Linda McDaniel, who attends Hope Church, has coached at Caldwell-Guthrie Elementary since she became involved with the program seven years ago.
“It’s inner city and they’re babies,” McDaniel said of her draw to the program. “If not me, then who?”
McDaniel, also not a former teacher, said she wishes she would have had that “extra push” in her education.
“It could’ve been me,” McDaniel said. “I’m happy to be there with the little ones. There are some stars that will rise up, and it will be because of the folks that took the extra time and poured into the children.”
Mary Anne Gibson, Germantown alderwoman and member of Germantown United Methodist Church, praised the program’s growth and response to a need.
“(Jackie) saw a need,” she said. “Students needed