At the Camp Sharigan reading camp yesterday in Corpus Christi, Texas, the children captured 120 tricky words. We never tell children that they missed a word; we tell them that the word is tricky and they need to capture it. When they capture a tricky word, they learn to spell it and understand its use and meaning using a 4-step process. 

 After they learn a tricky word, they write the word neatly in their best handwriting, decorate it with colored pencils and cute rubber stamps, and hang it on a make-believe poison ivy vine. Each leaf on the vine can have anywhere from one to five words written on it. Thank you to the wonderful volunteers, and to St. John's United Methodist Church, which provides space and funding to make this non-religious program possible. 

This is the Match the Sound station at Camp Sharigan, where students train their brains to think of words in terms of sounds. 

Camp Sharigan Project for Reading!

The Camp Sharigan Project is looking for 1st through 3rd grade children who need help in reading. 
St. John’s United Methodist Church at 5300 South Alameda Street in Corpus Christi (phone: 361-991-4342) is sponsoring a FREE reading clinic for children in the first through third grade who need help in reading.  This is a free, non-religious program; St. John’s is simply providing financial support and classroom space. We use the latest research-based techniques, including vowel clustering and group-centered hands-on intrinsic motivation. We also use 12 different teaching techniques.  We believe that every child can learn to read, and we look forward to helping them. 

This year-long program will run on school days from September 16th to May 7th, 2020.  We start on September 16th.  All sessions are held from 4 to 6 PM in the Community Life Building at St. John’s UMC. Children must be registered by parents, and parents provide transportation.
Some of our success stories have been:

• A student who failed for nine straight years in public school is now reading.
• A student diagnosed with ADHD and failing in reading moved up two grade levels in one year.
• A student diagnosed with dyslexia and whose parents tried everything, including expensive private one-on-one tutoring, learned to read and moved up to beginning chapter books in one year.
• Six children who entered the program reading at the pre-K level ended the year reading at the 2nd grade reading level.  Only one child in the group was a first grader.
• One student started at the pre-primer level (pre-K) and ended the year at the third-grade reading level, while a second grader started the year reading below first grade and ended at the fourth-grade level.
• Three students moved up four grade levels in reading, four students moved up three grade levels in reading, and eight students moved up two grade levels in reading in one year. 

We invite you to contact us if you know of a child who struggles or has problems in reading or comprehension.  We would be happy to talk with you.  We mostly work with first through third graders, but if we have openings, we are happy to include fourth-graders as well. 

Sessions start on September 16th.  There’s absolutely no charge. 

Dates and Times
We kickoff with a week-long reading camp on September 16th.  The children will come each day Monday through Friday, 4:00 to 6:00 PM  for Camp Sharigan.  This is a hands-on reading camp that concentrates on reading, writing, comprehension, spelling, and oral fluency. 

After that first week, starting on September 23rd, we will settle into our year-long schedule, meeting only on Monday and Thursday from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.  We will still stress reading, writing, comprehension, spelling, and oral fluency, but the Reading Orienteering Club curriculum for this portion of the program will also stress the individual needs of each student.  All sessions are 4:00 to 6:00 PM.
 
Please register by contacting:  
 
Elaine Clanton Harpine, Ph. D. 
clantonharpine@hotmail.com 361-867-8040
​
Check out my free Reading Blog 
 
If you teach a child to read, you can change the world.