$2 Million Gift Helps Expand the Magic of Reading
Gift from Michael & Susan Dell Foundation can trigger more gifts to stretch state dollars
It’s a magical moment when a child first learns to read.
An early childhood school readiness program called TEEM (for Texas Early Education Model) is helping teachers create that magic – a magic that helps children become good readers and, eventually, better overall students.
Susan Landry, Ph.D.
Directed by Susan Landry, Ph.D., the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professor in Developmental Pediatrics at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, TEEM provides a package of research-based services for teachers, including classroom materials, an online teacher training curriculum and a personal digital assistant to track the students’ progress. Once 15-20 classrooms in a community are participating in TEEM, a fulltime mentor is assigned to work with the teachers in that community.
A two-year, $15 million Texas Education Agency grant is expanding the TEEM curriculum and its School Readiness Certification program to 20 communities and 1,000 classrooms throughout Texas, while a $2 million grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) helps pay for the salaries of mentors in the field. Currently there are 60 mentors for teachers in the classroom.
Expressing her appreciation to the Dell family, Landry said, “Your gift can have such power. The MSDF gift is a trigger for more local gifts and matching funds from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.”
Once the communities find their own funds, the program is able to expand beyond what the state provides. For example, in Laredo, the state funds TEEM in about 40 classrooms. Local gifts from banks, corporations and workforce boards have expanded the program to a total of 165 classrooms.
“These gifts help stretch state dollars and send a message to the legislature that the community is behind this program and wants to see it expand,” said Landry, who is director of the UT Children’s Learning Institute.
Landry is also director of the State Center for Early Childhood Development and the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education, or CIRCLE, which are part of the Children’s Learning Institute. The institute also includes the Dan L. Duncan Children’s Neurodevelopmental Clinic, the Texas Primary Reading Inventory, the Texas Reading First Initiative, the Texas Head Start Collaborative Office and Reach Out and Read-Texas.
By Ina Fried, Public Affairs