She was a ReadUP student more than a decade ago. Now, Mykah Coleman is studying to become a teacher.

Early Childhood EducationFamily OppImpactReadUP

Nov 16

Mykah Coleman is a senior at Marian University’s Fred S. Klipsch Educators College in Indianapolis, where she’s studying to become a teacher.

Once a week, a ReadUP volunteer would get Mykah Coleman from the school cafeteria first thing in the morning.

They’d sit in the hallway at Center for Inquiry School 27 and read.

Mykah and her volunteer would start with an easy book, working their way up to harder ones. Then a third grader, Mykah loved reading. And seeing her ReadUP mentor became one of her favorite parts of the day.

“They were there for me, and they loved seeing me grow each week as a reader,” Mykah said. “Knowing they were there … to help me grow, that was a very positive feeling.”

More than a decade later, Mykah is now a senior at Marian University in Indianapolis, where she’s studying to become a teacher. She hopes to specialize in grades 5 through 9 in a subject for which she has great passion: English/language arts – and reading.

“... Being a part of ReadUP definitely has furthered my love for being a teacher,” she said.

For more than 15 years, United Way of Central Indiana’s ReadUP program has been sending volunteers into elementary schools across the region to read with students and help them get on track with grade-level literacy. Volunteers spend one hour a week reading with two students.

During the 2022-2023 school year, 294 volunteers worked with more than 300 students at 22 schools in Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Marion, Morgan and Putnam counties. So far this year, more than 230 volunteers are participating.

The program focuses on third grade, when students shift from learning to read to reading to learn.

That's something Mykah herself has been learning at Marian University’s Fred S. Klipsch Educators College: the importance of learning to read from kindergarten through third grade, to avoid the fourth-grade reading slump.

"That, as a teacher, we want to avoid,” she said.

When Mykah was in third grade, ReadUP taught her persistence and boosted her confidence as a reader, she said. She even remembers a particular ReadUP book that she loved, one about bottlenose dolphins.

Reading is a foundational skill that sets the course for a child’s future: “Being proficient in reading has honestly brought me the opportunities that I have today,” Mykah said.

At Marian, Mykah is president of Kappa Delta Pi, an honor society for educators, and she gives campus tours as a Marian ambassador. She’s a 21st Century Scholar and also serves as a mentor for the program, as well as being a first-year seminar mentor. This spring, she was crowned as the Indianapolis 500 Festival’s Queen Scholar.

Mykah recently signed up to become a ReadUP volunteer, too, to give back to the program that had a positive influence on her as a child, she said.

Mykah loves seeing children learn new skills and wants to be a teacher because of the amazing educators she’s had in her life. She wants to pass that on: “Reading and language arts came very naturally to me, but I also know that that is something that students of color within the Black and Brown community struggle with very much."

“If that is something that I excel in, if it’s something I can help my community with, … then I can definitely do that.”