WASHINGTON – Appearing before a key U.S. Senate committee on Thursday, Maine elementary school teacher Trisha Rhodes spoke in support of federally funded reading programs striving to assist students to learn to read as early as possible.

Addressing the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, the reading specialist from Conners-Emerson Elementary School in Bar Harbor offered support for the Reading Recovery Program, an effort that helps struggling first-grade readers gain basic reading and fundamental comprehension skills.

More than 50 percent of Maine’s elementary schools currently offer Reading Recovery in their early literacy programs, however, the lack of trained teachers makes it impossible to provide the program to all first graders in the state.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the committee, also highlighted her legislation, the Reading First initiative, a measure that became part of the “No Child Left Behind” education reform recently approved by Congress.

Collins’ measure created a cooperative approach that calls upon the federal government, states, and school districts to work together to help students learn to read. It supplies federal funding to state and local programs that help ensure that all children can read by the end of the third grade.

The appropriation for Reading First in FY 2002 is $900 million.

“The best way to ensure that no child is left behind is to ensure that every child can read,” Collins said. “And the best way to ensure reading proficiency is with early reading intervention. When children acquire reading skills at an early age, they are more likely to achieve academic success. Identifying reading difficulties early means that children will have more time to learn to be successful readers.”