At Dunbar Elementary in Tampa, at-risk students Sing Out and Read to succeed
Watching her student's grin widen from ear to ear after he read a complete sentence is a special moment that Victoria Klug cherishes as a teacher.
A recent celebration honored six Dunbar Elementary Magnet School students who improved their reading skills through the Sing Out and READ (SOAR) program.
"You should have seen his face," says Klug, known as Miss K to her students at Dunbar Elementary Magnet School.
Only an instant before, the young boy had stated emphatically that he can't read. His accomplishment is worth singing about, which is exactly what he and five other students at Dunbar did on their summer break.
With Miss K as their coach, the students followed a 12-week karaoke-style software program made available by Sing Out and READ (SOAR), a Tampa-based nonprofit founded by Carlo Franzblau and his wife Beth Franzblau.
Through donations and grants, the nonprofit's Family Literacy Project, or FLiP, aids students age 6 to 12 who struggle with reading skills and come from at-risk, low-income families that can't afford tutors.
The program has proved successful for many students in Pinellas County. More recently, schools in Hillsborough County are adopting the program, including Dunbar, Tampa Bay Academy, Westshore Elementary School and Robles Park Elementary School.
Teaching children to read is a passion for Klug, a special education teacher who is now teaching first grade in a general education class at Dunbar.
Some students who got the SOAR software had already been held back a year in school due to low reading skills. The program made a difference in those students' lives by boosting their reading grade level by at least a year in merely three months, Klug says.
"It's wonderful,” she says. “It's life-changing."