Elizabeth Devlin, 30, does not describe herself as an entrepreneur, but she worked without pay for a year to launch promising after-school reading clubs for at-risk middle-school girls that may catch on all over the country.
The idea for PageTurners came to Devlin while she was an undergraduate English major at Davidson College in North Carolina. She had considerable success tutoring a first grade girl who wanted to avoid reading. That led to a small grant to establish a reading program called GirlTalk for lagging readers in third through fifth grades.
After graduation in 2004, Devlin joined Teach for America (a program that puts top graduates of fine colleges and universities in low-income schools for two years). She taught 6th grade language arts at a school in Charlotte. Then she worked for a time at Success for All (a program that originated at Johns Hopkins University to raise academic achievement among low-income schoolchildren).
In January 2009, Devlin launched PageTurners at one middle school in Dorchester County. Ever since, she has been fine-tuning and expanding the program. Now in its fourth year, middle-school girls in Dorchester, Talbot, Caroline, Somerset, and Wicomico Counties, as well as in Baltimore City, can participate. Currently, there are 20 after-school reading clubs, with an enrollment of 173 girls. Next year, at least thirteen more schools will be added. Devlin has also added an associate to help: Morgan Fink of Baltimore City.
Here is how PageTurners works: Devlin chooses an outstanding middle-school teacher to run each club. The teacher, who receives a $1,000 stipend, invites girls to join based on one of the following criteria: qualifies for free or reduced lunch; scores below proficient on the MSA in reading; or displays social or emotional needs that could be met by participation in a book club. Ideally, each club has 8-10 girls and they meet twice a week after school for an hour.
Devlin has come up with a theme for each grade level. For 6th graders, the theme is: Who Am I? Seventh graders address the theme, Who Are We? In 8th grade, the theme is, What Is Our Role? PageTurners gives the books to the girls to keep, and provides teachers with vocabulary, questions, discussion topics, and activities. The books are fairly recent young adult novels, such as Rapunzel’s Revenge or Song of the Trees.
“This is not just about reading,” Devlin says. “It is about empowering girls to be future leaders.” Devlin has five goals for girls in the book clubs: 1) improve interest in reading and the desire to read; 2) improve actual reading skills; 3) develop self-awareness and a sense of the future; 4) develop the ability to think critically; and 5) graduate from high school and attend college.
Devlin is working on developing evaluation instruments for the program. She plans to make PageTurners a national program. It is a non-profit organization with a board of directors that includes Barbara Viniar, President of Chesapeake College and Fred Hildebrand, former Superintendent of Schools in Dorchester County. Contributions are always welcome and may be sent to: PageTurners, c/o Elizabeth Devlin, P.O. Box 879, Easton, MD 21601.
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