CV NEWS FEED // Indiana public and private universities are set to receive some $21.5 million in grants to help fund teacher training programs, according to a local report.
The goal of the grants is to help improve literacy for students K through 12th grade, according to local Indiana news outlet WSBT 22. The grants come from the Lilly Endowment, through its program called “Advancing the Science of Reading in Indiana (ASRI).”
The Lilly Endowment’s ASRI aims to prepare teachers for improving literacy rates by using “Science of Reading” methods. WSBT 22 reported that the method “is an approach to teaching children how to read that is based on decades of research about how the brain works to process text and language.”
School districts are required by law in Indiana to have curriculums that follow the Science of Reading, which focuses on five “essential components”: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Indiana passed the legislation in 2023, which also requires teachers to be trained in the Science of Reading.
The University of Notre Dame will receive $496,000 from these grants. Some colleges and universities are receiving up to $1.5 million, according to WSBT 22, which noted that the “amount per school is based on the number of Indiana teaching licenses granted to graduates in early childhood, elementary and/or special education.”
The Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Teaching Fellows Academic Director Kati Macaluso told WSBT 22, “One of the major wins of this Lilly funded initiative is the opportunity it affords us to partner with the local community and the state of Indiana to make great things happen for both teachers and kids.”
Students who are ACE Teaching Fellows can earn a master’s degree debt-free in preparation for entering the teaching field. While they earn the master’s degree, they teach full-time at a local Catholic school.
The grant’s funding will help students studying in the ACE program, and also will support incorporating more of the Science of Reading fundamentals earlier-on in undergraduate studies, Macaluso explained.
According to WSBT 22, “Macaluso also says the grant will allow ACE to redesign its summer practicum programming and teaching curriculum that the fellows and licensed teacher mentors will use.”
Notre Dame undergraduate senior Sophia Alvarez will join the ACE program, and told WSBT 22 that she is enthusiastic and passionate about being a part of the ACE teaching program, and is grateful for the new Lilly grant.
“I did grow up Catholic but what really calls me to working in Catholic schools is the built-in language of how to holistically educate a child, mind, body and spirit,” Alvarez told WSBT 22. “I am feeling very hopeful about the Lilly grant and how the Science of Reading is going to affect the lives of students all across the country.”
