Date: July 7, 2006
Contact: Carol Connelly, Director, Media & Communication Services, ext. 5267, cconnelly@pnc.edu

PNC Selected as Northern Indiana Curriculum Center

WESTVILLE – Purdue University North Central has been selected as the home of the Northern Indiana Curriculum Center for Middle Grades Reading, a resource for middle school teachers and university students who are studying to become teachers.

The Northern Indiana Curriculum Center for Middle Grades Reading provides ready access to various sorts of reading materials and teaching aids appropriate for teachers of students in the middle grades – fifth grade through ninth grade. This is the only such site in northern Indiana. Other sites are located at Ball State University, Indiana State University, Indiana University Southeast, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne, University of Evansville and University of Indianapolis.

These curriculum centers are part of the Middle Grades Reading Network, funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc., and dedicated to the promotion of voluntary reading among young adolescents; the reinstitution of reading as a subject taught in Indiana's middle-grades schools by licensed reading teachers; and the updating and expansion of Indiana's school libraries book collections.

The Northern Indiana Curriculum Center for Middle Grades Reading is housed in the Purdue North Central library, located on the second floor of the Library-Student-Faculty Building. Dr. Jack Humphrey, director of the Middle Grades Reading Network, explained that teachers as well as students studying to become teachers may visit the center to use the materials on hand and may check out items for a short period of time for their use in developing class curriculum and to use as classroom learning materials.

Dr. Diane Maletta, PNC associate professor of Education, explained that PNC is a convenient as well as appropriate location for the center, especially due to the recent beginning of the PNC Reading License program for its undergraduates.  In addition, the North Central Area Reading Council, serving Porter, LaPorte and Starke counties, regularly hosts its meetings on the PNC campus and meeting attendees now will have the opportunity to utilize the center while on campus.

Maletta is an advocate for reading education. She is a charter member of the North Central Area Reading Council, a recipient of the “Indiana State Reading Association Council Member Award” for outstanding work in Literacy, Editor of the Indiana State Reading Association Publications - “Indiana Reading Journal” and “Connections Newsletter,” past president and current board member of the Indiana Reading Professors Council, member of the LaPorte Literacy coalition to promote community literacy in LaPorte county, and a member of the Reading Review Team at the Center for Excellence in Leadership of Learning in Indianapolis.

Maletta explained that as PNC students take time to visit the center and use the materials, they will become more familiar with reading materials that could be of help in improving the teaching and learning of reading in their classrooms. With the collection, area teachers and principals also can see materials to help decide what to purchase, particularly in this upcoming year of reading textbook adoption for Indiana public schools.

Further information about the Northern Indiana Curriculum Center for Middle Grades Reading may be obtained by contacting Dr. Diane Maletta at dmaletta@pnc.edu or at 800-872-1231, ext. 5591.

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