The Mission

California State University, San Bernardino is proud to announce a literacy center designed to meet the lifelong-literacy needs of children, adolescents and adults within the Inland Empire.  This Literacy Center is designed as an integral partnership between the community and the University.  Through this center, CSUSB will establish a major community presence; it will be where families bring their sons and daughters of all ages to refine reading and general literacy ability.  A special emphasis is planned to support families as they are engaged in the work of incorporating literacy within the structures of their day-to-day lives.  Even further, the needs of those for whom English is a second language will be especially accommodated.

The Work

The Literacy Center will be systemic tutorial assistance in reading, writing and oral language for students across the K-12 grade levels as well as adults seeking empowerment and better life opportunities through literacy.  Expertly trained professionals will administer a range of assessments to pinpoint specific and general needs of children, adolescents and adults.  A ten, twenty, or thirty-week program will be designed and implemented based on each individual’s needs.  This assessment and instructional emphasis will be complemented by a research component.  The instructional, contextual, and textual factors judged as most conducive to growth in literacy will be documented through close study, refined and eventually shaped as written documents to be published in leading journals and presented at major conferences.

The Results

Responsibly-grounded research demonstrates that specifically focused instruction results in remarkable gains in reading and general literacy scores even over short periods of time.  Such results can be confidently expected where explicit attention is paid to reading and literacy skills as well as linguistic, cultural, and attitudinal variables of those seeking our services.

CSUSB’s reading and literacy programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels are staffed by caring and knowledgeable faculty well poised to forward the mission of the Literacy Center.  The center’s staff, graduate and undergraduate students of CSUSB’s reading & literacy programs, and volunteers will be guided to implement tutorial programs.  Such multi-faceted involvement benefits many as refinement and study of reading and literacy are undertaken by all engaged in this work.

A Vision for the Future

As we watch our schools’ test scores and listen to media reports, we are struck by the urgency of the literacy situation in the Inland Empire.  The Literacy Center is conceived as a place in the real world where parents and teachers within our service area can find help!  We envision this work as a lifelong bridge to literacy for individuals seeking assistance.  We also see ourselves as a haven for those now for interventions that can sustain literacy in vital ways over the long term.  This is a project that will remain, evolving as need dictates, well into the future for the thousands who will come to us and return bringing thousands of others with them.  California State University, San Bernardino, College of Education expresses gratitude to Watson and Associates for their generous gift of $200,000 which has made the Literacy Center possible.