Mrs. H is Retiring!

After 16 years with The Reading Center, Jan Hagedorn, known to many students and families as “Mrs. H,” is retiring as of November 2021. She was celebrated at a staff luncheon in October and an open house on November 5, 2021. 

“I am very thankful for Mrs. H. She has helped me since the first grade. Because of her I now know how to reed (ha, ha, just kidding) read. In all seriousness, I wouldn’t be where I am today without her help. Thank you, Mrs. H! ”

— Luca Presa, 10th grader and former student

Jan took Orton-Gillingham Training at The Reading Center to help her dyslexic son, Sam, learn to read. With her training and enthusiasm for teaching, she became a tutor for TRC in 2005. Since that time, she used her passion for the youngest learners to develop and later become the first Director of our Reading Readiness program – a program for families and students ages 4-6 based on the principles of Orton-Gillingham. This program has helped hundreds of families over the years to support their emerging readers in a fun, structured way. For many of her students, they entered the group class nervous and guarded and emerged with newfound confidence and skills to make them successful in the classroom.  

“She is one of a kind! Blessed to have had her in our lives during the beginning stages of our son’s journey with dyslexia.”

— Krystal Campbell, Reading Center parent

Jan is known statewide for her over 20 years of legislative advocacy work. She focused on tangible ways to improve training for classroom teachers to equip them to better serve the needs of dyslexic learners and students that struggle with reading. Jan’s ability to find and foster relationships with decisionmakers helped lay the groundwork for legislative successes in recent years, including mandatory screening and state investment in teacher training in the science of reading. Jan is quick to note that much more work needs to be done. 

“Jan’s passion for education has been a blessing to my children and every child she has had the opportunity to work with. Our kids are better able to read, learn and handle the not so easy things in life because she helped them feel successful.”

— Kate Jirik, Reading Center parent

Jan’s capstone achievement was helping to gain a $1.5 million investment from the state of Minnesota to fund our new building. Over several years Jan fostered a relationship with former state Senator LeRoy Stumpf, then-Chairman of the state’s capital investment committee. Senator Stumpf was so inspired by Jan’s testimony before the Senate Education committee that he encouraged his daughter to enroll his granddaughter in Jan’s Reading Readiness program where both her skills and confidence grew. The grateful senator vowed to help The Reading Center reach more students by jumpstarting us down the path of a successful request for state bonding support.

“I can’t imagine TRC without you! You’ve directly helped so may children realize their potential. ”

— Rachel Berger, Dyslexia Advocate

Jan and her husband Steve plan to travel and enjoy each other in their new status as retirees. Jan says she has enjoyed all of the last 16 years at The Reading Center watching her “kids” learn and grow.

Happy Retirement Jan, we will miss you. You believe in the potential of every child. What a gift you gave to each child and family you worked with.

Thank you for your service and commitment to The Reading Center!

“Jan Hagedorn has earned many enthusiastic and supportive parents and young people over the years, and the affection is well deserved. Anyone who has had Jan teach their child knows that Jan will advocate and fight hard for that child to learn to read. She cares immensely about her students and her students return that caring in kind. Jan has done so many important things for The Reading Center, from Reading Club and free screenings for emerging readers, to creating a student database, to creating a website and facilitating dyslexia simulations, to giving testimony at the MN State legislature and analyzing data on student reading gains. If something was needed, Jan would step up to the plate. What she will be remembered most for is her passion for dyslexia and the urgency with which she feels that teachers of young people must know the science of reading”

— Reading Center Executive Director, Cindy Russell

“Jan made a huge impact on my life and truly cared for my well-being. She pushed me to be the best that I can be and taught me a lifetime worth of skills in my few years with her. I was and still am truly grateful for my years working with her..”

— Kailie Paulson, Reading Club Intern

New Partnership with Urban Ventures!

As of September 3, 2020, The Reading Center and Urban Ventures (UV) began an exciting new partnership to serve at risk and dyslexic students of color in urban Minneapolis.  

Several teachers in the UV literacy program will be trained in Orton-Gillingham through The Reading Center’s accredited Orton-Gillingham Training Institutes in 2020-21. 

Through this partnership, The Reading Center will extend our reach to include more struggling students within communities of color by enhancing UV’s capacity to provide high quality Orton-Gillingham instruction in its literacy program to help UV’s students make reading gains, both dyslexic and non-dyslexic. 

UV is located just south of downtown Minneapolis in the area hit hardest by civil unrest this spring. Most of the students and families served are Hispanic and Black. An important element of its programming is literacy instruction and many UV students are reading under grade level.  This partnership will help more UV students bridge the gap and gain critical reading skills.   

The mission of UV is to break the cycle of poverty in South Minneapolis, by supporting the whole child and whole family with a cradle to career pipeline of support, and for all of their students to attend college or post-secondary training.  An important element of its programming is literacy instruction.  UV has been including Orton-Gillingham approaches into its literacy program for two years, and its literacy program leader, Kendra Peterson was trained by The Reading Center in 2018.

The Reading Center’s mission is to serve the needs of people affected by dyslexia.  Our motto is “Literacy for All,” and as such, we care passionately that all students receive good literacy instruction as the foundation of education.  We know that dyslexia is an equal opportunity learning disability, affecting about 1:5 people regardless of race, income level or geography.  Students of color are negatively affected by the achievement gap. Having dyslexia exacerbates that gap, and The Reading Center seeks to get more of its high quality reading instruction to a broader population of students.

Joe Powers: Rochester Philanthropist, Business Leader and Dyslexic

This spring, The Reading Center inducted our first class of distinguished dyslexics into our Hall of Fame. Despite struggling with reading, all our inductees have utilized their strengths to achieve great personal and professional success.

Joe Powers is a legend as a businessman and philanthropist in the Rochester, Minnesota community.  He is the President of Powers Ventures LLC;  The Canadian Honker Restaurant, Pinnacle and Canadian Honker Catering (one of the largest caterers in SE Minnesota), the Rochester International Event Center, Top Tier Delights, Mayowood Stone Barn, and J. Powers at the Hilton.  He has earned more awards that we can list, such as 2020 Rochester Police Service Award and the 2014 US Chamber of Commerce Small Business award. 

When Joe was a child, he struggled to learn to read.  He was held back in Kindergarten but continued to struggle in 1st and 2nd grade.  In 3rd grade, his mother took him to the Mayo Clinic, and there he was directed to The Reading Center.  He was tested in our founder, Paula Rome’s basement and tutored by Jean Walters.

After tutoring for some months, he began to understand that he was learning things there that help him feel less out of place at school.  By 5th grade, he caught up with his peers.   Joe graduated from high school and opened his first restaurant at the age of 21.  “Dyslexia is something that you can cope with if you are given the tools.  The Reading Center gave me those tools.”

Joe is a major donor to The Reading Center and a past member of the Board of Directors.  He served as a Co-Chair of The Reading Center’s successful Capital Campaign from 2016 – 2020.

When asked what he would like to say to encourage students who are struggling now, Joe says, “I believe that dyslexia is actually a good thing.  We think differently.  We work harder.  We have an ability to think outside of the box and apply ourselves to the job at hand.  When you have the tools to cope with dyslexia, nothing is outside of your reach.”

Thank you, Joe, for all you do for our community, and for sharing your Reading Center story with a new generation of parents and students.

To read our other Blog posts visit us at: https://www.thereadingcenter.org/blog

To read more about our other Hall of Fame inductees, visit us at: https://www.thereadingcenter.org/hall-of-fame

July 2020: Joe Powers posing for a photo in front of our new book sign/sculpture.

Introducing The Reading Center’s “Book Sign” Sculpture!

The Reading Center has moved four times in its 70-year history – and has never had an official sign to mark our building. That changed earlier this spring when French born artist Sebastien Richer’s steel book sculpture was installed at the corner of Scott and Commerce St. N.W. – right outside our building.

Sebastien Richer is the owner and artist behind Richer Metal in Dodge Center, Minnesota, near Rochester. He is known for his custom pieces using metal including unique and breathtaking staircases, gates, foundations, chandeliers and sculptures. He has worked on projects around the globe as well as locally, on the Rochester art walk along the Zumbro River and beyond.

Sebastien combined The Reading Center’s motto, “Toward Literacy for All” with our logo and created a statement piece, shaped as an 8 ft tall book, sitting on its end with pages fanned out.  If you look at the pages, you will even see that a page has been “dog eared,” so you can find your place. We hope the sign will help bring attention to our center and our guiding mission to help struggling students learn to read.

We are grateful to Rochester Home Infusion for their pledge to donate $50 for each photo taken in front of our sign this July. This fun campaign is helping to bring awareness to The Reading Center, but also adding a little whimsy to all of us during this extraordinary time. There is still time to participate, just take a photo in front of the sign and post it to our pinned post on Facebook here. We will share as many as we can by July 31.

Steve and Shelly Sperling (and their foundation Sperling Smiles) made a generous donation to our capital campaign and have sponsored the sculpture. Thank you Steve and Shelly!

Learn more about Sebastien:

·        Richer Metal: https://richermetalcom.business.site

·        Post Bulletin article: https://www.postbulletin.com/life/lifestyles/french-metal-artist-has-worldwide-renown-but-his-studio-s/article_b3358b60-4ee8-5344-97fa-c6dce4e6fb30.html

July 2020 - Sebastien posing in front of the installed sign at The Reading Center.

April 2020 - Installation!

March 2020 - Sebastien creating the sign in his Dodge Center shop

38%

38%. That is how many Minnesota fourth graders test as proficient in reading in a nationally normed test. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) given every two years to students in 4th and 8th grade give a picture of how the nation’s students are performing in reading, math, writing and science.

Of interest to us is the reading score. The NAEP measures reading comprehension – the ultimate benchmark of any good reader.

Nationally, 35% of fourth grade students are proficient in reading. In Minnesota, our figure was 38%. Would it surprise you to know that since 1992 that number has only been above 40% once (in 2013)? In classrooms all around Minnesota, more than half of our students are not learning to read in the general education classroom. Many of those students are dyslexic but many others are struggling to learn from teachers who have not been given the tools to teach their students to read well.

Like most of the rest of the nation, Minnesota’s reading scores have remained flat for decades – despite teachers working harder and districts spending tax dollars on professional development.

Do you know which state did see their scores rise? Mississippi. Bucking the national trend, scores have been on the rise in Mississippi since 2013. Between 1992 and 2017 Mississippi did not have a fourth grade reading proficiency score above 30%. This year, it was 31.5% - still low, but more than 10 percentage points higher than 2011. Why?

In 2013, Mississippi invested state money in training its K-3 teachers in structured literacy. Specifically teachers were trained in the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (also known as the LETRS program). This teacher professional development program was written by Dr. Louisa Moats, a top researcher in the field of structured literacy/Orton-Gillingham and dyslexia. The journalist Emily Hanford has reported on LETRS and the positive results it yields in classrooms as well.

The Minnesota Department of Education is taking a small group of teachers from around the state through the LETRS program this school year. This is a good first step. It would be wonderful if all teachers in Minnesota could be given these tools.

Training teachers in structured literacy –such as the proven Orton-Gillingham approach, is what we have been doing for almost 70 years. If you want to learn more about our training in structured literacy/Orton-Gillingham, reach out to The Reading Center. You can be the one to help a struggling student learn to read.

-    Sarah Carlson-Wallrath, Development Director

Scores by state: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&sfj=NP&st=MN&year=2019R3

Cites:

https://www.voyagersopris.com/news/2017/05/17/Study-Mississippi-Professional-Development-Initiative-Significantly-Improves-Quality-of-K-3-Teacher-Instruction-Student-Engagement

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading