KINGSTON, R.I. – Dec. 4, 2025 – On a recent fall weekday after school, Theresa Deeney is found at Watts Natural Tutoring in the Niantic office park in Providence. Lang’s Bowlarama is nearby but the students in the tutoring center’s classrooms don’t appear upset that they are there for books, not bowling. Rather, they are thriving under the focused attention from a team of graduate students helping them learn to read.

Deeney directs the University of Rhode Island’s After School Literacy Program. Under her guidance, URI’s pre- and in-service teachers have helped hundreds of local K-12 students with reading and language challenges. Today, this year’s cohort of Project SUSTAIN teachers, in the URI graduate program in special education, are getting coaching from Deeney in the science of reading instruction.

URI teachers in the clinic are learning to diagnose learning needs and create instructional programs that meet the specific needs of the children who come through their door.

“We modify programs for our students, to give what that student needs. We’ve seen impact — not only on the teachers’ ability to craft instruction to meet students’ needs, but in student confidence and skill,” says Deeney, a professor of literacy and learning disabilities in URI’s Feinstein College of Education. “Families tell us we have an impact on them, either through advocacy, increases in student self-reliance, or just peace of mind that their child is showing improvement.”

Deeney started her career as an elementary special education teacher and later a school principal in Boston and Pasadena; it was in those roles that she realized how many of her students struggled to read and decided to pivot to make reading her career focus.

According to Danielle Dennis, dean of the College of Education at URI, “Teachers in the program appreciate Terry’s sense of humor and efforts to design engaging activities to be able to practice and apply. Her years of experience as a teacher, principal, and literacy specialist make her an important go-to person for answers to questions about old and new laws, policies, and initiatives designed to protect the rights of children with special needs. She has detailed understanding of a wide range of assessments and is committed to helping others understand how to diagnose, support, and advocate for children who struggle with literacy.”

The right to read

In Rhode Island, the 2019 Right to Read Act mandated that teachers be “proficient” in the science of reading and structured literacy. However, even with a structured literacy approach, many students struggle to attain the skill. Some have learning disabilities that prevent them from responding to instruction in the way reading is taught in school.

Deeney brings considerable chops in reading instruction, and advocacy, to help students in the clinic access learning in ways that work. In 2017, she developed URI’s Graduate Certificate in Dyslexia Knowledge and Practice, the first Rhode Island Department of Education approved stand-alone advanced knowledge in dyslexia endorsement. She championed the regulations to ensure students with dyslexia and specific learning disabilities in reading are taught by teachers who are trained to provide evidence-based reading instruction to all children.

In the clinic, instruction is tailored to each student’s particular learning style and needs; there are multiple ways to help a student find their way to reading success, be it a word scavenger hunt through the tutoring offices, a fun garbage can reading game, or even room to turn a celebratory cartwheel after a successful reading assignment.

“How we teach our students depends on the student,” Deeney says. “Some of our students come with little knowledge of how words work — decoding (which is sounding out words) and encoding (spelling). If that’s the case, we use a very structured, multi-sensory approach. Some of our students have trouble processing language, which may then lead to challenges with comprehension. If so, we work on that. Through it all, we focus on student strengths to work on students viewing themselves as readers.”

“The clinic is such a service to the community,” says Dennis. “It has supported hundreds of students who struggle with reading — all for free.”

Deeney is in constant motion, checking in with students and teachers in the supervised clinic.

The clinic has a positive, upbeat vibe. For these eager young learners, staying after school is a chance to learn and to shine. Students in the program are split into small groups with URI teachers, one or two per student — the individual attention helps.

“It’s a chance to learn best practices in teaching and then put them into action,” says Andrea Lahlum in the graduate program, a second grade teacher at the Paul Cuffee School in Providence. “This is a special program and feels like a second family. There are a lot of opportunities at URI that distinguish the program from other graduate programs.”

Students in her program were inspired to hear Miguel Cardona speak on campus this fall, and Lahlum said she left the talk taking his message to “lead, not leave” the teaching profession to heart.

Across the room, Alizah is getting the kind of high-quality instruction the program aims to develop. Her teacher Desta Heath says there’s a lot of planning for each session, which also includes movement-based learning. Already they are seeing results. As a student who came to the clinic saying, “I don’t want to read,” now Alizah is saying, “I don’t want to leave.”

At the end of each session, Deeney organizes a celebration of the students’ hard work, inviting families to see each of the literacy clinic’s young learners present a project of their choice. Their teachers are on hand, celebrating them, too.

“To see a struggling reader stand in front of a crowd and read for the first time publicly is moving beyond words,” says Dennis.