Creating Readers
If one were to count the number of lives Dr. Barbara Swaby has changed ‘one child at a time’, it would be well into the thousands.
Gifted educator, well-known author, consultant, and sought-after speaker, Dr. Swaby is well deserving of her reputation as national champion for reading and literacy—and yet she is humble about her significant accomplishments that will have lasting impact, locally, nationally, and internationally.
Countless children in our community have benefited from Dr. Swaby’s free evaluations and reading clinics. Area school districts have adopted her teaching methods, and her work with teachers means another generation of leaders will take up her cause. Dr. Swaby is also distinguished nationally as the co-developer of the Functional and Critical Reading and Reading Comprehension tests, the current standards for measuring reading skills throughout the country.
Community ambassador of literacy
Dr. Swaby does not consider her work finished at the end of class, nor confined to the campus. You will find her in the community as much as in the classroom, conducting literacy workshops for community groups, helping parents create literate home environments, providing free reading evaluations for children and adults, and teaching free reading clinics. She also involves the entire community in special programs like Literacy on the Go or This Child is Mine, the foundation she established in 2005.
Giving in more ways than one
Besides generously sharing her expertise, time, and effort, Dr. Swaby is a philanthropist in her own right. When she learned parking fees were keeping low-income families from bringing in their children for reading evaluations, Dr. Swaby set up a personal fund to cover the costs.
Knowing that illiterate African-American males will be especially challenged in life, Dr. Swaby provided the financial support to set up a literacy program targeting these youth. And, thanks to the scholarship Dr. Swaby established, every year a child from a low-income family gets free private tutoring that otherwise would not be possible.
Click here to support the Dr. Barbara Swaby Endowed Professorship
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