{"id":16782,"date":"2025-08-26T16:22:45","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T16:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-english-teacher-and-students-prepare-to-launch-program-for-teen-literacy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:00:51","slug":"dolores-english-teacher-and-students-prepare-to-launch-program-for-teen-literacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-english-teacher-and-students-prepare-to-launch-program-for-teen-literacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores English teacher and students prepare to launch program for teen literacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A program focused on boosting the literacy of high schools students is being created by a Dolores English teacher and her students. Once launched, the program will be held at the Dolores Public Library. (Journal file photo)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Seniors at Dolores High School, with help from English teacher Jessica Kuntz, are partnering with the Dolores Public Library to launch an after-school program aimed at reversing a decline in literacy among teens ages 13 to 18.<\/p>\n

The initiative aims to boost teen literacy in Montezuma County, where 25% of residents have low reading proficiency. The county also ranks among the highest in the state for child poverty, according to Kuntz.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a crisis,\u201d Kuntz told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kuntz\u2019s idea stems from her pursuit of a master\u2019s degree in English education. As part of an action research project, she explored the link between literacy and poverty. Kuntz said she discovered that teens living in poverty often lack access to the educational resources available to their peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to do an action research project about a challenge that we see in our classrooms. The challenge that I picked was the correlation between poverty and literacy, especially in rural school districts,\u201d Kuntz said.<\/p>\n

After speaking with the library\u2019s children\u2019s director, Hannah Carloni, Kuntz realized Montezuma County lacked high school-focused literacy program \u2013 and that a program like hers was needed.<\/p>\n

The brainstorming and planning phase of the project runs through Thursday, Oct. 2, with about 20 of Kuntz\u2019s English 4 students participating. Students will divide their time between the classroom and the library, where they\u2019ll conduct research, develop marketing strategies and plan the program. They\u2019ll also write research papers based on their findings.<\/p>\n

Other aspects of the project include creating flyers, launching social media campaigns and designing activities tailored to students\u2019 interests.<\/p>\n

An open house is tentatively scheduled at the library for Oct. 2. If all goes as planned, it will mark the official public launch of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Let\u2019s make it reading and literacy a priority,\u2019 but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean (we couldn\u2019t do other things). We could do arts and crafts, culinary stuff, computer literacy. So, it\u2019s not just focused around literacy, though that is the primary objective,\u201d Kuntz said.<\/p>\n

Once launched, the program will be open to all teens ages 13 to 18 in Montezuma County, regardless of reading proficiency. It\u2019s also intended to become a permanent fixture at the Dolores Public Library.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting them actually excited about reading and more invested in their books and education is what I\u2019m really going for,\u201d Kuntz said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

program will be held at the Dolores Public Library<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,103,155,28,1443,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-literature","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20388,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16782\/revisions\/20388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16782"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}