Community of Inquiry
Turning a New Page– Westmorland Institute
by Dr. Pat Campbell

Introduction
Turning a New Page is a research-based program that was implemented in the Westmorland Institution in Dorchester, New Brunswick in June 2000. It is an innovative program that develops comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, and selfesteem among prison inmates. Prior to 2000, the inmates’ had resisted explicit literacy instruction. However, as the inmates became involved in Turning a New Page, they became more willing to receive classroom instruction.

The Program
The program involves two components: audio-taping of children’s books and explicit instruction. Inmates contribute to the literacy development of young children in local schools by producing audiotapes of children’s books. One inmate remarked “recording the stories makes me feel like a productive member of society” (Taylor & McAtee, 2003, p. 476). The audio-taping requires repeated readings. Some inmates need to read a book up to 80 times before they can achieve an error free audiotape. The classroom instruction focuses on metacognitive copmrehension strategies, vocabulary development, and word patterns.

The Participants
Over the course of two years, 65 inmates participated in Turning a New Page. Only 42 of the 65 the participants received explicit instruction. The remaining 23 were not allowed in the classroom because of the restrictions related to the nature of their offense. In the first year, more than 1,600 children and 56 teachers in 20 elementary schools received complimentary children’s books and audiotapes.

Special points of interest: • Inmates at Westmorland Institute develop fluency and confidence to move on to more challenging reading materials. • The Literature Review helps practitioners frame their own writing. • The value of research in an applied field is to improve the quality of practice in that discipline.

Methodology
Upon entering the program, the inmates were administered the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) to determine pre- and post reading measures. The inmates were administered the post-test after they had been in the program for 12 months. The SRI provided the instructor with the inmates’ independent reading level. At this level, a person has excellent comprehension and makes very few word recognition errors.

The instructor then found children’s books that matched each inmate’s independent reading level. For example, if their independent reading level was Grade 3, the instructor found them books to audiotape that were at a Grade 3 readability level. At the end of the project, data was also collected through exit surveys, which were distributed to 72 teachers. A total of 56 surveys were returned.

Results
In one calendar year, the post-test results indicated that the mean growth in reading was 2.6 years, and some inmates improved as much as three to four grade levels. Engaging in repeated readings of books at their independent reading level contributed to the development of the inmates’ fluency. Reading

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