Library helps to improve education

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- After years of having some of the lowest standardized test

scores in the district, the numbers are on the rise at Whittier

Elementary School.

School officials say a new community library that serves students,

parents, siblings and teachers is at the heart of the improvement.

The school offers kindergarten through third-grade instruction, as well

as adult education and a state-funded preschool.

As a way to improve the students’ education, Principal Sharon Blakley set

up the library so students and their parents, most of whom speak little

or no English, could check out books.

“Over 100 parents are studying literacy during our two morning and two

afternoon classes,” Blakley said. “In many cases, there are no books in

the home.”

Although the expanded use of the library reaches more homes and helps to

raise literacy levels, it is not what excites Blakley most.

With the support of the Behind the Classroom Door organization, which

supports ways to increase learning, the library now has full-time

instructors who teach both the students and the faculty at Whittier.

“We believe that to improve student learning that you must have better

teaching,” said Robert Shilling, who founded Behind the Classroom Door.

“We know what better teaching is.”

Shilling’s foundation specializes in working with students learning

English as a second language.

“You’re dealing with a different kind of child,” Shilling said. “As that

child learns to read, his oral language must be brought up to the level

he wants to learn. A child can’t read if they can’t speak.”

That is why Shilling studied the best methods of teaching language and is

providing funding to any school that wants to train teachers in these

teaching methods.

Jan Marquardt, the teacher who runs the new library at Whittier, uses a

combination of phonics, reading, writing and spelling to teach her

students.

Whittier teachers are urged to stay with their classes during library

time and observe Marquardt’s methods

“They learn to teach better by virtue of watching,” Blakley said. “We

hope to raise the knowledge base of the teachers.”

Student scores at Whittier have already risen, Blakley said. And that is

a trend she expects will continue.