Experiential Capstone is Helping Schoolchildren Succeed

EWU students are supporting elementary aged children by helping them advance their reading and comprehension skills as part of an experiential capstone for education majors.

Now in its sixth year, the capstone program is coordinated by EWU’s Ashley Lepisi, a senior lecturer. Over the past several years the program, offered during the fall and winter quarters, has helped boost the literacy skills of more than 400 students attending Grant and Adams elementary schools, including some schoolchildren with disabilities and delays.

Most recently, 22 EWU students, all seniors readying for their full time student teaching placements, spent Wednesday afternoons at southeast Spokane’s Grant Elementary, where more than 90 percent of the school’s 320 students qualify for free and reduced-price meals. During winter quarter, Eagle students’ have helped 68 schoolchildren in grades 2-5.

The program is a win-win, says EWU alumnus George Gessler, Grant Elementary School’s principal assistant.

EWU’s soon-to-be teachers learn to understand some of the challenges in the lives of a diverse population of students, says Gesler ’88, ’89, ’20. Grant’s schoolchildren, meanwhile, some of whom have experienced poverty and trauma, benefit tremendously from the individual instruction in literacy and social and emotional skills.

“Here at least once a week, they get to feel positive,” Gesler says. “They get to have people work with them, young people that are really enthralled with them. They get a positive experience, and we get better readers in return. So that’s been huge for us.”

The results speak for themselves Lepisi explains. About ninety percent of participating schoolchildren demonstrate a measurable improvement in literacy skills by the end of the quarter.

For their part, Lepisi says, EWU’s future teachers learn what it’s like to teach in schools classified as Title 1, Part A, a federal category that directs extra services to schools where a majority of students come from disadvantaged households. The experience, she says, sometimes changes the trajectory of their teaching careers.

“We’ve had a lot of students say, ‘I didn’t think that I had the capacity to serve in a Title 1 building,’” says Lepisi. “Many of them leave saying: ‘This actually seems a little bit more fulfilling to me – and actually I’d rather be in a Title 1 building now.’”

After 8 weeks working with Grant’s schoolchildren one-on-one and in small groups, EWU students gained expertise in creating learning activities that feel like play — yet get results.

“The most rewarding thing is when a kid finally gets the ‘Aha!’ moment when you are teaching them. They are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I get it!’ and then they explain it to you and are so excited,” says Madison Kem, a 23-year-old senior from Renton.

Kem, a five-time All Big Sky Conference midfielder on EWU women’s soccer team, says there’s a perceived stigma about teaching at Title 1 schools. In reality, she says, they are all “just children who are ready to learn.”

Collaborating with other teachers on strategies to improve reading and comprehension is preparing her for the future, Kem adds. “This is so helpful as a teacher because you are learning every day.”

Jillian Headley, a 21-year-old senior from Spokane, spent the quarter working with a first grader who thrived with personalized instruction specifically tailored to his interests and abilities.

“It is great because all your hard work you’ve put in for the quarter is paying off in seeing the student grow and succeed,” Headley says.

Initially, Gracie Bush, 21, also a senior from Spokane, planned to teach in the upper grades. After having a positive experience working with students in the fourth and fifth grades, she’s totally up for teaching younger children. “Once I graduate, I’m just kind of keeping my options open at any grade level,” Bush says.