A wise man named Dr. Seuss once said, “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

An organization making sure that children in the Sacramento area have a chance to build the early reading skills they will need for the rest of their lives is Reading Partners – a nonprofit that provides volunteer-led, one-on-one literacy tutoring to students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade in low-income elementary schools.

According to Deanna Berg, Sacramento/Chico regional executive director for Reading Partners, the organization works in local communities to provide early intervention for children who are behind six months to two and-a-half years in reading abilities.

“Statistics show that kids who aren’t reading on grade level by third grade is an indicator for high school drop out rates and their ability to be successful as they move on through their school years,” she explains. “So we really focus on those early years with the belief that if we can catch them in that first part of their education, we’re going to get more impact in the long-run.”

Between the Lines

Reading Partners currently operates 11 programs in the Sacramento area, including two schools in the Arden area – D.W. Babcock Elementary School and Thomas Edison Elementary School – and Caroline Wenzel Elementary School in the Pocket.

Betty von Werlhof, principal of D.W. Babcock Elementary School, says this is the second year they have had the Reading Partners program at the school. She says last year, 33 students took part in the program, and this year they have 29 students enrolled so far. “That list is growing, we’re adding students every month – as we get more tutors, we get more students,” she adds.

According to von Werlhof, Reading Partners is a “wonderful program” and they received “fantastic data” from last year – of the 33 students enrolled in the program 93 percent of students accelerated their rate of learning. “The average gain for every month the child was tutored, they gained two months of reading, so they were doubling their rate of progress while they were being tutored,” von Werlhof says. “It’s really exciting. Programs like this are helping us to get kids up to grade level. Not only do they learn to read, but they can use their reading skills to learn everything else they need to know.”

Over at Caroline Wenzel, Dennalia Harris, onsite coordinator for Reading Partners at the school, says this year the program has 38 students enrolled, however she hopes to hit her 55 enrollment goal by the first week of March. She says the students know they are behind, and through a one-on-one environment students can go at their own pace and see their progress.

“Reading Partners does make a difference — when I did the mid-year review, I saw the difference and it’s amazing,” she explains. “It’s outstanding how much (the students have) grown in just three months. And that’s because of tutors – without tutors we wouldn’t be able to do that.”

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Read All About It

So how does Reading Partners work?

Berg says the program uses volunteer tutors that provide one-on-one tutoring sessions to each child in the program twice a week. Reading Partners uses its own curriculum created and developed by education and literacy experts. There are two tracks — one for beginning readers that focuses on phonics and early reading skills, and a comprehension track for kids who are able to read, but not necessarily comprehending what they’re reading.

Teachers refer students to Reading Partners, Berg says. “When a child is referred to our program, we do an assessment to determine where they are reading, and that places them in the curriculum,” she explains. “They start there and they move through the lessons sequentially, each one builds on the next, so it’s really a highly organized system that’s really effective by our research that we’re doing.”

In addition to the initial assessment, Reading Partners also conducts assessments mid-year and at the end of year. “Our data shows for every month that they receive tutoring in our program, they make 1.6 months worth of gain in readability, so we’re really helping to move them along,” Berg adds.

The Reading Partners’ onsite coordinators at each school also work closely with the teachers and principal to keep them informed of each student’s progress. According to Tina Khatcherian, community builder and onsite coordinator for the Reading Partners program at Babcock Elementary, teachers are given the results of the students’ initial assessments, plus what strategies and goals Reading Partners will be working with. Additionally, she provides progress reports for each student when report cards are due.

“There’s not only written forms of communication, but I sit down and I observe classes in the beginning of the year, and I also find out what things they are studying so that I can do what I can to reiterate what they’re learning in class and support the teachers,” Khatcherian adds.

Helping Hand

To keep a program like this going, a strong set of volunteers is needed. Berg says their goal is to have 750 volunteers in the Sacramento area, which serve 575 children, and their volunteers range from high school students to business professionals to retirees.

Berg says they look for volunteers that are willing to make a commitment to a child for at least one hour a week for one semester, and volunteers do not have to be a literacy expert or credentialed teacher to help out. “The nice thing is our curriculum is really designed to where each lesson has one concept that’s being explored, and it has step-by-step instructions for a tutor to be able to pull out the instruction sheet and be able to teach that lesson following the steps in the packet they’re given,” she explains. Volunteer tutors participate in a new tutor orientation and a shadow session to get started.

Khatcherian says anybody can volunteer, and they provide constant coaching, feedback and ongoing training throughout the year “in order to make that volunteer the best tutor they can be.”

And von Werlhof says the tutors also provide a support for the children, as they are able to form strong relationships with an adult. “It’s just wonderful to see the relationships that the children are forming with these tutors that come, and care about them and support them, not just in the 90 minutes a week — I’ve even heard of tutors going to some of their sporting games and other events in their lives,” she explains. “It’s very heartwarming.”

For sign up to become a volunteer for Reading Partners or learn more about how you can help through financial contributions or children’s book donations, visit  http://readingpartners.org/.

The Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Ancil Hoffman Park will soon celebrate its 35th anniversary. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

But the road to reaching this notable anniversary has not always been easy for the center, which is dedicated to its mission of “bringing awareness of the beauty and diversity of the natural world to children, families and the community through education initiatives that foster appreciation, enjoyment and stewardship of the unique natural and cultural resources of the Sacramento region.”

The most difficult of these times occurred last July, when this award-winning environmental and cultural education center, which is part of a 77-acre nature preserve, was informed that it would be losing its county funding, because the county could no longer afford to operate the center.

But fortunately for the center, it has survived through the assistance of a non-profit organization, the American River Natural History Association, which obtained a temporary lease of the building from the county and presently operates the center.

Considering the challenges that the center faced last year, which included having its entire staff laid off, Betty Cooper, the center’s development director, said that it is especially gratifying for the center to celebrate its 35th anniversary.

Effie Yeaw gives local schoolchildren an up-close view of a bird at Deterding Woods in this 1960s photograph. / Photo courtesy, Effie Yeaw Nature Center

“In spite of the ups and downs and the incredible odds that we were facing last year, here we are like a phoenix, kind of rising from the flames of the budget devastation as an independent, non-profit and we’re really proud of that,” Cooper said. “We’re going to be here to stay. It’s a very important asset to the community to have our nature center here and we’re going to make sure that it keeps going in perpetuity.”

Through the recent work of the aforementioned association, which began providing assistance to the center in a lesser but nonetheless very essential role in 1981, the center has achieved much success during its transition.

Cooper said that the progress that has been made at the center has been accomplished with the labor of a dedicated “skeleton crew” of eight staff members, who have worked for lower wages and no benefits. In contrast, at its greatest strength, the center maintained a staff of 20 workers.

She added that the current staff is working to overcome one of its biggest obstacles.

“We’re fighting a bit of a public relations problem,” Cooper said. “A lot of people think that the nature center has been closed, so the teachers haven’t been booking their programs as much as they have in the past. So, we’re working on that. We’re doing big outreaches to the schools. We’re going to be offering some two-for-one-type programs to get the word out that we are open and thriving and we’re working really hard to keep the nature center and its wonderful mission going for the community.”

In recognizing the center’s 35-year-history, it is important to focus in on the name of the center itself.

Effie Yeaw, a former, local kindergarten teacher, played an instrumental role in the movement to protect Sacramento’s natural environment. / Photo courtesy, E. Stillman

The name Effie Yeaw has a strong legacy in the Sacramento region, whether one thinks of the popular nature center which bears this name or whether one thinks of the late educator and naturalist Effie Yeaw, who was thought so highly of that her name was memorialized as part of the name of the nature center.

Born Effie Mae Cummings in Chico on May 15, 1900, Yeaw, who was the daughter of schoolteachers Galen and Ella Cummings, later moved to Wheatland, then to Lincoln and eventually to Sacramento, where she attended Sacramento High School – where she served as president of the Biological Honor Society – and Sacramento Junior College (today’s Sacramento City College).

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in social studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 1922, Yeaw taught at Harkness Grammar School and Sutter Junior High School in Sacramento before moving to Hawaii, where she continued to teach, while earning her master’s degree in social studies from the University of Hawaii in 1932.

Yeaw later returned to the Sacramento area and resumed her teaching, this time as an elementary school teacher in the Carmichael School District, which was later a part of the San Juan Unified School District.

Yeaw worked to instill a love for nature in her students through the Carmichael Conservation Center, which included birds, squirrels, raccoons and a fawn.

Although the center closed in 1955, this closure caused Yeaw to turn her attention to an area along the American River, known as Deterding Woods, where she began to lead her students on nature tours.

In a creative fashion, Yeaw presented tales of animals with human names and various facts about these creatures of the wild and their environment to children of various ages.

Carmichael resident Sylvia Bringas fondly remembers participating in one of Yeaw’s tours at Deterding Woods, which would later become the site of the Effie Yeaw Nature Center.

The Effie Yeaw Nature Center is located at 2850 San Lorenzo Way in Carmichael’s Ancil Hoffman Park./ Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

“Those of us who got to meet (Yeaw) were very lucky,” said Bringas, who attended the local Marvin Marshall, Deterding and Carmichael elementary schools at separate times during the 1950s. “She was a teacher at heart trying to impart to us an appreciation of nature and the animals around us. She would take time to explain about each animal and then have us touch each one. I think she really was looking to the future and the preservation of what was around her. You felt her excitement and it made you want to pay attention to what she had to say. As you know we can be very antsy at eight years old. It takes a special person to keep the interest of children. I feel honored to have known her.”

Louis Heinrich, Jr., a member of the Effie Yeaw Nature Center’s associate board of directors, said that he participated in Yeaw’s tours from 1960 to 1965.

“I really remember Effie Yeaw as just this really kind person,” said Heinrich, Jr., who attended Marvin Marshall School at 5309 Kenneth Ave. in Carmichael. “(Yeaw’s tours) sparked an interest in the natural world that is outside your back door. A lot of people go to national parks and state parks to experience nature, but it’s right here (in Carmichael). That’s one of the things that Effie Yeaw helped develop in me as a young person is just look around and you’ll see (nature) everywhere. We are surrounded by it.”

Louis Heinrich, Jr.’s father, Louis Heinrich, Sr., a former biology teacher at Grant Technical College and later at American River College, which opened in 1955, said that he organized the Deterding Woods tours with Yeaw and another local resident, Mike Weber.

The Effie Yeaw Nature Center features a 77-acre nature preserve with scenic trails. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

The eldest Heinrich said that in addition to these tours, Yeaw had a dream of having a nature center located in Deterding Woods.

“Another reason why we had these field trips into the Deterding Woods was that (Yeaw) was hoping that the Carmichael School District would obtain some kind of a concession there that they could have it as a nature center,” Heinrich, Sr. said. “She was already planning a nature center in that area.”

Although Yeaw, who passed away at the age of 69 in 1970, never saw her dream of having a nature center at the Deterding Woods site become a reality, her legacy remains strong through both the name and mission of the Effie Yeaw Nature Center and the people in the community who she influenced through her love of nature.

For more information regarding the Effie Yeaw Nature Center and its activities, including possible 35th anniversary-related events, call (916) 489-4918 or visit www.sacnaturecenter.net.

lance@valcomnews.com