Pam Kirsch

Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC) is an AmeriCorps program and is the domestic version of the Peace Corps. MRC provides full and part-time literacy tutors to schools that provide extra support for students, age 3 to grade 3, who are falling behind in reading.

A school may apply to partner with MRC. Once accepted as a MRC service site, the school must commit to literacy as it relates to the MRC model.

Key components of the MRC model:

1. The school must have a plan in place to identify students who do not receive special education or Title I services, but are in need of supplemental Tier II support.
2. The school must implement the specific MRC approved literacy interventions.
3. MRC students must be provided 15-20 minutes of daily intervention time.
4. The MRC tutors must do benchmarking or data collection three times a year and do weekly progress monitoring for participating students. AIMSweb is the online data management system used by MRC members.
5. The school must allow for the coordination of tutoring interventions.
6. The school must ensure that the MRC tutors serve a full caseload of 15-20 students.
7. MRC promotes family involvement and communication with parents.
8. The school must provide an Internal Coach who is trained by MRC. The Internal Coach helps with scheduling intervention times and does integrity and fidelity checks on the interventions.
9. A MRC Master coach visits the site regularly to assist the Internal Coach.

Jefferson Elementary has qualified for two full-time MRC members the last two years.  This has allowed us to provide one-to-one reading interventions to students who in the past wouldn’t have gotten these interventions. This program helps those students who are not making adequate progress, but don’t qualify for Title I assistance.

Our Tier II reading intervention programs are very fluid and students move between Title I and MRC programs. Student programming decisions are based on the data that we collect on them and their individual needs.

The MRC members may be recent graduates, retirees, or parents. They may join MRC by:

• Committing to 11 months of service beginning in August.
• Receiving training in instruction methods that are proven to help children improve their reading.  The trainings are mandatory and on specific dates throughout the school year.  The MRC members are trained to provide specific research-based reading interventions:  letter/sound correspondence, newscaster reading; phoneme segmenting, duet reading; phoneme segmenting, pencil tap; blending words, stop/go; repeated reading with comprehension strategies, great leaps reading.
• MRC members earn a stipend and up to $5,350 to pay for school or student loans.

For more information visit MinnesotaReadingCorps.org.

Contact Pam at pkirsch@newulm.k12.mn.us