Turning A New Page

Turning a New Page was conceived over a period of four years. The project started at the Literacy Towards Reintegration Conference held in Ottawa, Canada where Rick McAtee was invited to speak. He discussed the relationship between self-esteem, behavior, and lack of literacy skills. Asked to prove this connection, he was challenged to use a Federal Institution where students were reading far below grade level. The project, called Turning a New Page, spanned the next three years and focused on 1) motivating and empowering the resistant reader, 2) creating a positive attitude, 3) explicit instruction, and 4) fluency. In 2002, the project was featured on an ABC special broadcast, “Reading: Your ABC’s to Success.” In 2003, the success of the project was documented in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, “Life and Literacy: Struggling Readers in Prison.” In 2004, Turning a New Page (now a company) used the information and data obtained from the older resistant readers to create materials intended for use by instructors everywhere. Today, Turning a New Page continues to create and sell materials to help struggling learners.