Innovative After School Program Supports Students With Learning Disabilities

CORAL youth show a new engagement to learning.

According to a U.S. Department of Education report, one in every five people has a learning disability. This problem creates certain limitations in academics, such as reading, spelling, listening, speaking, reasoning, math, and writing. About three million children ages six to twenty-one face this problem and receive special education in school. Experts say that the first thing that needs to be done is to identify the educational needs and for parents to work with their child’s teacher to find new learning alternatives.

The program Communities Organizing Resources for Advancement in Learning (CORAL), based in San Jose, is supporting students who have learning disabilities. "This program provides a completely innovative instruction component in literature. For four days a week, participating children receive a minimum of sixty to ninety minutes of reading. Instructors focus on comprehension depending on their reading level. Our main objective is for children to read well and excel in their academic learning," says Sara Reyes, CORAL Program Coordinator and Director of the Educational Services After School Program at the Catholic Charities Community Center of Santa Clara County.

The CORAL program also offers academic enrichment such as sports and helps with homework, art, and music, all with the goal of teaching children to get involved in positive activities. The CORAL program relies on funds provided by the State of California that are designated for After School Education and Safety Programs (ASES). The funds are divided between schools and districts that collaborate with community allies whose work is to provide safety and enrichment through education, presenting new alternatives for youth during after school hours.

The children that apply and belong to the program come from seventeen schools in the Franklin-McKinley School District and one school in the San Jose Unified School district. "At this moment, we have sixty to two hundred children per school. They are transferred from the schools based on their results from the state exams or referred by school principals, teachers and counselors. Eighty percent of children we have are Spanish-speaking. The major advantage these children have is that the program is free of cost, and we do not verify migratory status of the family," Sara Reyes says.

Reyes says that the area where children struggle with the most is with English as a second language. "Not all schools are bilingual, and sometimes, it is worse for a child that has just arrived. The CORAL program helps with special instruction for learning the basics of the English language. We work with new techniques in learning to teach them to have better pronunciation and to have academic longevity in school.”

She adds that the program also helps children with dyslexia. CORAL also helps children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a behavioral problem that affects approximately four to eight percent of school-age children across the nation. Because of the learning issues that some of the students have, Reyes says that all of the information the program deals with is confidential and private. "Only the families are authorized to inform us of their child's issue if they wish. In some cases, if the families prefer not to say anything, but we detect that a problem exists, we still provide support for the child within our capacity.”

While CORAL serves many youth, the work of instructors is completely personalized to each student. The instructors work with the students on their homework and build encouraging relationships with the youth. “Each class has 20 students, and the work that the instructors do is a unique job. They are professionals helping young people," explains Reyes.