When Desirree Manzano’s son Anthony was diagnosed with dyslexia, his first-grade teacher suggested that he go to Sacramento State.
Specifically, she recommended Sacramento State’s new Language and Literacy Clinic, which had just begun offering no- or low-cost literacy assessments and tutoring for children and adults.
“He hated school. He would cry every morning, didn’t want to go in,” Manzano said. “Now, he’s excited to go. He’ll look at signs as we’re passing by (and say), ‘Mama, mama, I can read that.’ It’s amazing for a mom to see their kid actually enjoying it and having that turnaround.”
The clinic, an integral part of the College of Education’s Master of Arts in Language and Literacy program, has been operating since last fall and provides MA students with hands-on learning experience assessing and tutoring children and adults with difficulties reading or writing. Also, members of the community get access to highly trained reading and writing tutors, something that may otherwise be financially out of reach. The Sacramento State clinic’s fee – $300 a semester or roughly $15 a session – has been waived the past two semesters.
The literacy clinic grew out of Sacramento State’s Center for Counseling and Diagnostic Services, which for years has provided low-cost counseling to the community.
“We found out over the course of the last year that 90 percent of the students who have historically come over to the counseling center have an issue connected to reading,” said Porfirio Loeza, a professor of education and, along with Professor of Education Marcy Merrill, co-director of the MA program. “The literacy clinic is a win-win because clients would be able to get the traditional counseling services, and then we would be able to provide a diagnostic assessment and interventions.”
Those assessments allow the Sacramento State students to identify clients' literacy struggles – difficulty recognizing words, comprehension or vocabulary issues, dyslexia or dysgraphia, among other potential challenges – and then develop a path forward. Eleven students are in the MA program, along with 11 clients ages 6 to 17, allowing for one-on-one instruction.
At the end of the semester, parents receive a report, including recommendations that they can provide to their child’s school if they wish.
“As we ended the fall semester, many of the parents were excited because they had a clear path as to what was needed for their child to continue to improve,” Merrill said. “At the last session, we brought all the parents and clients and celebrated a semester of hard work.
"Each parent met with their child's tutor, and in this meeting, the Sac State student provided an informative rundown of the reading intervention.”
All current students in the MA program are practicing teachers in local school districts – though that is not a requirement for the program – and may regularly work with only one grade level of students. The clinic provides them an opportunity to work with students across grade levels and develop a broad expertise. That can allow them to advance in their career as literacy experts or tutors at the school site, or at the county or even state level.
“We’ll learn a task in our lecture and then we’ll get to implement it right there, 20 minutes later,” said Chay Thomas, a high school teacher and MA student who hopes to become involved in literacy curriculum at the state level.
“I also really like the small cohort that we have," Thomas said. "There are only 12 of us so we get to know each other really well and pick each other’s brains in a way that we probably wouldn’t otherwise.”
Manzano praised the Sacramento State student who has been working with her son and said the clinic’s impact has been tangible: Anthony wants to buy books now, instead of toys, and gets excited about trips to the library.
“He’s really expanding and getting more confident,” she said. “Before, he was a lot more self-conscious and unsure of himself. Now at school he’s getting along with other kids. It’s a big turnaround for him.” – Jonathan Morales