Centers & clinics
Hartman Literacy and Learning Center
The Hartman Literacy and Learning Center is a teaching, research and service site that houses the Family Literacy Project. The Literacy Project is designed to improve the quality of literacy instruction provided by teachers and the literacy acquisition of urban children. Undergraduate teachers in training tutor inner-city Milwaukee school children. Faculty members review lesson plans and supervise tutoring sessions. Research examines factors that relate to growth in childrens' reading abilities. Research is also conducted to investigate the effectiveness of teacher training in literacy instruction by following graduates into their classrooms.
Significance to Marquette and scholarly community
The Hartman Center exemplifies the Jesuit mission of education and cura personalis and models the College of Education’s mission of Care for Knowledge, Profession and Person in the following ways.
- Care for Knowledge: Research on the literacy and math development of children that attend our after-school tutoring program provides much-needed knowledge about how to help children at risk of failing because of poverty and lack of educational resources to learn to read. Our literacy project is unique because it involves children, their parents, classroom teachers and our undergraduate teachers in training. No other program in the country uses this model to examine the effects of intervention programs for young readers.
- Care for the Profession: Developing the professional identity of teachers in training and in-service teachers is exemplified by school visits by our undergraduate teachers in training, conferences with parents, and reports sent to parents and teachers. Our teachers in training are learning what it means to care for the child in the context of their families and schools.
- Care for the Person, especially in service to others: Our undergraduate teachers in training are learning that care for others doesn't mean a patronizing “let me help you.” Rather, it's a deep understanding of cultures other than one's own and a way to use differences to enhance learning for all. Likewise, we demonstrate care for our teachers in training by providing detailed constructive feedback.
- Improve the literacy development of inner-city Milwaukee children, as measured by individual assessments of their reading abilities over time
- Improve the involvement of families in the literacy development of their children by providing: materials for children to read with their parents and suggestions to help parents support their children's reading; literacy events where families hear well-known children's authors and read their materials; parent conferences where tutors help parents understand what we're teaching their children and how they can help; and celebratory events that acknowledge the children's participation in the project and present them with a book
- Improve urban teacher education in literacy for those who are planning to teach or are already teaching in inner-city Milwaukee elementary schools as measured by questionnaires on literacy practices and videotaped lessons
Articles
An integrated strategies approach: Making word instruction work for beginning readers by Dr. Linda Allen
Factors that predict success in an early literacy intervention project by Drs. Lauren Leslie and Linda Allen
For more information about the Hartman Literacy and Learning Center, please contact the center director, Dr. Kathleen Clark, at kathleen.clark@marquette.edu or (414) 288-7235, or Coreen Bukowski at coreen.bukowski@marquette.edu or (414) 288-5790)
