SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — One woman is making a difference by teaching kids how to read.
News Center 7’s Kylie Bridgeman spent time in the Reading Room on Friday learning why this work is so critical for our communities.
Inside one Springfield Church, a woman is changing the lives of dozens of children all because she decided to turn her shame into purpose.
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“Not only do I teach them to read, I build their confidence,” said Lisa Holmes, a literacy advocate and reading coach.
The Reading Room in Springfield is a learning oasis.
Inside, kids are learning to read one sentence at a time.
Beating the odds of nationally declining literacy.
“It is a huge, huge problem that we kinda, kinda just say, oh, well somebody else is taking care of it,” she said. “Well, no, nobody is taking of it.”
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Lisa Holmes is the founder of this organization and said this work is about more than books and schoolwork.
It’s about living a normal life, a fact that’s all too personal for her.
“Being severely dyslexic and ADHD, I did not learn to read until I was 32,” Holmes said.
That emotion has led her to rewrite the story for Springfield readers.
“Still, there’s a lot of shame with that,” she said. “And I understand that there are so many people and children who are struggling with reading.”
According to Springfield City Schools, third grade ELA proficiency in the district is 34%.
For kindergarten through second grade, it’s 36% and 44% of the district’s preschoolers are reading at grade level.
Holmes is on a mission to bring those numbers up.
“Trust me, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice and a lot of encouragement,” Holmes said.
She believes what she’s doing is working, and more people need to step up to the plate.
“Going back to that pencil and paper, going back to that looking at every word and helping that child click those sounds, those patterns really works when the child is young. Once you get them reading.”
You can find Holmes and the Reading Room on Facebook.
She’s working to get grant funding and scholarships to keep the cost of sessions as low as possible.
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