A lowercase “e,” it turns out, can be difficult to master. But Patrick Jagiello is endlessly patient.
“Slide right, then circle around,” Jagiello tells 4-year-old Tarrell Harvey at the sign-in table in Mandy Sluss’ preschool class at Milwaukee’s Next Door Foundation. Tarrell follows his lead, but his “e” looks a little wobbly.
“Here, I’m going to help you,” Jagiello tells him, gently placing his hand over the child’s hand. And together they move the pencil, sliding right, then circling around.
“That’s cool,” Tarrell tells him, obviously pleased with their effort. “Now, I want to try.”
That is exactly the reaction founders of the Washington, D.C.-based Literacy Lab hoped to elicit when they created the Leading Men Fellowship, a 2-year-old program aimed at boosting early childhood literacy skills while exposing young men of color to careers in education.