Rhea Pederson Reading Center

335 Morris Hall
Tel: 608-785-8132
Director: Dr. Delores Heiden

The Rhea Pederson Reading Center serves as a hub for literacy activities in the School of Education. It primarily has three functions.

• It provides tutoring space for up to ten children and tutors to work one-on-one on literacy skills and strategies.
• It provides for classes of up to 20 students to meet.
• It houses a literacy curriculum collection that is used by both university students and practicing teachers.

Each small area is equipped for tutoring, including a small table and chairs, a file/equipment cabinet supplied with materials to support tutoring, and a white board, and outlets and internet jacks. A central computer is also available for use by all children.

Tutoring sessions can be videotaped (with parental permission) so that preservice and inservice teachers can learn from seeing themselves in action. All tutoring is monitored by the instructor from a central control station. The tutor takes the videotape home for self-assessment and reflection immediately after the tutoring session. When the tape is returned, the instructor and the student discuss the instructor’s observations of the tutoring session.

The reading center can accommodate seminar-sized literacy classes. The students benefit from the proximity of current literacy materials that provide both theoretical knowledge and practical strategies for teaching children and young adults to read and write.

The literacy curriculum collection is an excellent resource for both preservice teachers and practicing teachers. The collection includes professional journals, current professional books, basal readers, literacy assessments, children’s literature and adolescent literature. A work-study student serves as the librarian for the reading center collection.