Center for Literacy
In fall, 2006, the Center for Literacy in the Teacher Education Department of the College of Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock was established. UALR has a history of literacy partnerships with schools, including professional development activities and research projects. The Center for Literacy acknowledges the university’s commitment to increasing literacy achievement in Arkansas and the nation, while also putting into place a structure for organizing literacy initiatives.
The mission of the Center for Literacy is to use literacy as a tool for meeting the following goals: 1) to prepare students to assume leadership roles for influencing literacy at local, state, and national levels; 2) to offer a framework for implementing learning communities within schools and regions where students can collaborate on literacy projects; 3) to advocate for reading specialists, intervention teachers, and Literacy Coaches in all schools by making graduate coursework more accessible to students across the state; 4) to promote research initiatives between faculty and schools; 5) to provide services to the community, schools, and state to address literacy-related issues, including annual conferences, literacy academies, and summer institutes; 6) to provide intellectual resources for supporting literacy efforts within schools, 7) to continue to build partnerships at the national and professional levels in order to advocate for effective literacy practices, early intervention services for struggling readers, and reading specialists in all schools, 8) to increase opportunities for faculty to collaborate on literacy-related projects and research; and 9) to publish scholarly materials, including a peer-referred online journal that focuses on school-based research, technical reports on literacy, and other documents that illustrate university and school partnership. The Center for Literacy website provides literacy educators with a valuable resource for supporting teacher development and school improvement, including a discussion board with over 2000 forum members and 6000 postings. The UALR Center for Literacy provides a structure for integrating five interrelated elements: teaching, professional development, research and scholarly activity, technology, and partnerships.
Within the Center for Literacy are three nationally recognized models:
Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy (PCL). In 1998, UALR created and implemented the PCL model, which has been reported in four professional books, four staff development video publications, and numerous research reports. The PCL model is designed to prepare Literacy Coaches with specialized knowledge and experience to implement comprehensive literacy changes at the school level. Toward this goal, the model utilizes three partnership levels: university, district, and school. At the university level, UALR is the National PCL Center and provides training and ongoing support for partner universities. Currently, these partner universities include University of Maine-Orono, Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, National Louis University in Chicago, University of Kentucky at Lexington, and Purdue University in Indiana. At the second level, UALR and its partner university sites provide specialized training to district literacy coaches, who, in turn, provide training to school-based literacy coaches. At the third level, school-based literacy coaches provide training to classroom teachers. The three-tier training model has resulted in more than 125 accredited PCL sites across the country, including Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Pennsylvania, and others.
Comprehensive Intervention Model (CIM). UALR is a nationally recognized training center for the K-8 small group intervention model. The CIM was developed at UALR in 1992 and has since provided specialized training to intervention teachers across the United States and abroad. The Comprehensive Intervention Model has been documented in numerous publications and reports. Training in the CIM is delivered at three levels: 1) university faculty from other states receive training and establish a university center for the delivery of the CIM in their states; 2) district and regional coaches from training from a university trainer and train intervention teachers as CIM specialists, and 3) intervention teachers attend specialized to become intervention specialists.
Reading Recovery: UALR is one of only 22 accredited University Training Centers (UTC) in the United States. Since 1991, the UALR UTC has provided specialized training to over 100 Reading Recovery teacher leaders from Arkansas, Missouri, Alaska, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. These teacher leaders have provided specialized training to over 1000 Reading Recovery teachers in their respective states.