By Jean M. Muscat

"These kids make it such a fun challenge. It's so fulfilling when they laugh and enjoy it and want to be with me," says Kim Augenstein, a U-M junior from Pittsburgh who tutors in the AmericaReads Challenge literacy program.

The nationwide AmReads program, which the federal government introduced in 1996, gives Augenstein and 84 other University students a chance to help area youngsters improve their ability to read.

"A lot of these kids don't get the chance to read at home," Augenstein says. "They come from single-parent families, or both parents work and don't have a lot of time to read with their kids. The best part of the program is that I feel like I can't really do anything wrong; what I'm doing is only helping the kids."

Statistics say that unless a child reads well by the end of third grade, he or she is unlikely to ever catch up, is more likely to drop out of school and often faces lifelong disadvantages. Forty percent of America's fourth graders cannot read as well as they should. An important aim of the program is to help more children read well and independently before they reach fourth grade.

Augenstein and other U-M undergraduates are tutoring 165 preschool, kindergarten and first-grade students in seven area schools. She tutors two 3-year-olds for two hours twice a week at the Perry Nursery School in Ann Arbor.

The tutors, who are paid through federal work-study awards, attend nine hours of orientation and training sessions at U-M School of Education before being placed at a school.

Carolyn Schrodel coordinates the AmericaReads program for the University within the Center for Learning Through Community Service.

She says her job "combines all the elements I feel passionately about: early childhood literacy, service to the community and working with college students. AmericaReads has given me the opportunity to develop a new program which has the potential for having sustainable impact on the community and young children in particular."

Jean M. Muscat '97 is on the staff of Ross Roy Communications in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.