Schulze Teaching Fellows

Literacy Kids

Schulze Teaching Fellows Partnership Program

Literacy Kids provides experience and funding to St. Thomas education majors as they work with children in Catholic elementary schools in need of extra support. Funding for the program is generously provided by the Richard M. Schulze Foundation. The Schulze Teaching Fellows tutors, who must be undergraduate University of St. Thomas students who are junior education majors or minors with a GPA of 3.0 or above, are chosen for the program through a competitive application process.

There are two main objectives of the program:

Inspire children to become engaged readers and mathematicians through a free before/after-school literacy program
Provide Schulze Teaching Fellows the opportunity to enhance their development as future teachers

Contact

Dr. Liz Fogarty

Associate Professor of Education

FOGA1755@stthomas.edu

Richard Schulze speaking at an on-campus event

Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation

Funding for the program is provided by the Richard M. Schulze Foundation. We appreciate the generosity of donors who are invested in impacting both young learners and future educators, helping them build literacy, math, and teaching skills, as well as compassion and confidence. The Schulze Teaching Fellows gain valuable skills and experience, providing a pipeline of future teachers for Twin Cities Catholic schools.

St. Thomas student helping elementary student in an elementary classroom

Making an Impact

In the 2024-2025 academic year, St. Peter Claver School and Saint Helena School serve as the partner sites. Ten Schulze Teaching Fellows were selected as Literacy Kids tutors. Prior to working with students, Literacy Kids tutors learned about the developmental progression of literacy in students in kindergarten through third grade. The fellows also learned about literacy assessments to better tailor their sessions to their students’ needs.

Tutoring sessions for literacy are conducted on site twice a week throughout the school year and include attention to phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, fluency, and comprehension. To measure the efficacy of the program, tutors conduct pre- and post-assessments to evaluate students’ literacy skills improvement.

The Fellows themselves benefit from this program, developing confidence and experience and gaining skills in instruction, lesson planning, and behavior management.

Student Success in Literacy

St. Peter Claver and Saint Helena students made incredible progress through the Literacy Kids tutoring program:

100%

100% of students made progress with phonological awareness and phonics skills.

All 20 students taking the PAST made significant growth from the pre-tutoring to post-tutoring tests, exceeding foundational skill growth.

9 of the 10 Schulze Teaching Fellows indicated an interest or strong interest in teaching in Catholic schools, up from 6 at the start of tutoring.