Western Kentucky University will use a $93,184 grant from the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development to present a lecture series on literacy and helping students prepare for college.

“Shared Responsibility: Growing the Readers We Want” targets faculty and instructors from Kentucky two- and four-year higher education institutions and technical schools and Kentucky school superintendents. The purpose is to address mandates in the 2009 Senate Bill 1 to serve underprepared students and better prepare students for college and career readiness in reading. It will provide perspectives related to college readiness in reading and help participants become familiar with current professional development models for faculty and WKU models for outreach to elementary and high schools.

The lecture series will be led by Dr. Pamela Petty, director of the WKU Center for Literacy. Other presenters include Dr. Andrew Mienaltowski, assistant professor of psychology at WKU; Sharon Hunter, WKU coordinator of college readiness; Kandy Smith, literacy specialist at the University of Tennessee; and Daniel Super, certified school psychologist at WKU.

The first session will be 9 a.m.-3 p.m. June 22 at the Carroll Knicely Conference Center at WKU’s South Campus in Bowling Green. Other sessions will be scheduled in Lexington and in eastern Kentucky. The first 100 to register will receive a $150 stipend and free books and materials.

“These sessions are designed to strengthen college and university faculty’s understanding of the reading and study skills support needed by students who are underprepared to read and comprehend complex text, think critically at the college level and actively engage in the learning process,” Dr. Petty said. “They will also strengthen administrators’ understanding of what high school and middle school teachers need to do to help students construct meaning, retain information and apply new learning at the level required in college.”

Senate Bill 1 requires the Council on Postsecondary Education, the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Education to develop a unified strategy to reduce by half the rate at which high school graduates have to take remedial courses in college and increase the completion rates of students enrolled in remedial classes.