By Alvin Powell

Special to the Gazette

Like a true reporter, 12-year-old Danny Martins interviewed Sharon Beckman about her swim across the English Channel, finding out that Beckman trained hard and, because of the currents, wound up having to swim about 25 miles even though the channel is only 20 miles across.

Not only did Danny ask the questions, he wrote up his findings. But Danny doesn't want to be a reporter when he gets older. He wants to be a lifeguard.

Danny's interview is typical of techniques used at the Literacy Institute at the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester this past summer, a program modeled after the Literacy Laboratory in the Graduate School of Education.

Instead of forcing struggling readers and writers to abide by a strict curriculum, teachers at the Institute instead let the children's interests be their guide.

In Danny's case, his love of swimming prompted teacher Linda Caswell to hook him up with friend Sharon Beckman, a Dorchester resident who swam the channel in the early 1980s. Other teachers took children to the local police station, the zoo, and the aquarium, all in an effort to connect reading and writing to children's interests.

The Literacy Institute borrows heavily from Harvard's Literacy Lab, where children come for intensive tutoring by Harvard graduate students. The Literacy Institute is the brainchild of three Harvard doctoral students, Julie Wood and Nell Duke, both past lab supervisors, and Barney Brawer, who has acted as a liaison with the charter school.

"It's more intensive than anything going on in the city," Wood said. "We're really trying to integrate the program into the community and apply what we've learned at Harvard here."

And that pleases Associate Professor of Education Victoria Purcell-Gates, who runs Harvard's Literacy Lab and who has been keeping tabs on the Literacy Institute.

"If they didn't apply what they learn here [at Harvard], why put in the time here?" Purcell-Gates said. "We do not see ourselves divorced from reality -- in the case of the Ed School that means schools. We train for application. We research for application."

The eight-week Neighborhood House Literacy Institute was designed to give 39 students a summertime boost in their reading and writing skills. The program borrowed the Harvard Literacy Lab's intensive one-on-one instruction and brought it to the community setting of the Neighborhood House Charter School.

Wood and Duke, who designed the Institute's program, added weekly field trips and workshops for parents to the Literacy Lab's formula, and then compressed it to fit into the summer months.

"The kids will be going back into their classrooms reading and writing better than they were last year," Duke said.

The program's 13 teachers were mostly drawn from the ranks of current and former students at the Graduate School of Education. They handled three children each during the summer. The children came in twice a week for individual two-hour classroom sessions and then again on Fridays for a three-hour group field trip.

The field trips provided material for reading and writing assignments both before and after the excursions.

Teacher Sarah Beck, a second-year doctoral student, took her pupils to the local police station on a recent field trip. The children were fascinated by the place and particularly by some reading material on the walls -- the wanted posters.

"We had to drag them away so they wouldn't miss their van,'' Beck said.

As for writing, the children kept journals of the trip and wrote thank-you notes to the officers.

Teachers and organizers say they hope the Institute returns next summer. But that decision will be made after they evaluate the program's effectiveness and examine the results of tests administered at its conclusion.

At least one of Neighborhood House's regular teachers will be familiar enough with the summer program to help gauge its success. Amy Lee, a reading specialist at Neighborhood House during the school year, worked with the other teachers at the Literacy Institute this summer.

Lee is confident the children will be better off in September than they were in June. Test scores at the program's conclusion may not reflect all the good it has done, she said, because some children are intimidated by formalized tests. In addition, the program may have improved things that can't be measured by tests, like self-esteem for children who lacked classroom confidence because of poor reading skills.

"I think regardless of what the test scores show, it will be deemed a success," Lee said. "It's wonderful for the students because the alternative is a camp with no reading and writing Ñ or not even any camp."

Others say the program's effects could be seen even before any testing. By midsummer, the children fell into three categories, Duke said. There were some "miracle kids," making tremendous progress; a larger group of students making steady progress; and a few for whom progress was slow despite the intensive instruction. For that last group of students, Duke said, the emphasis is on devising regular school-year programs to improve their reading and writing skills.

But the students weren't the only ones learning this summer. Though experienced teachers, the Institute's instructors got a chance to do some learning as well.

Beck, a high school teacher, said she enjoyed the chance to work with younger students in a real-life setting, outside the walls of the Literacy Lab. And in the lab, she said, she worked with one student. At the Literacy Institute, she worked with three.

"My background is as a high school teacher, so dealing with little kids is a challenge,Ó Beck said. "I've increased my range of knowledge about learning difficulties and literacy."

Wood and Duke got the idea for the program last fall. Convinced they could effectively translate the Harvard Literacy Lab's techniques into a community setting, they contacted the Neighborhood House Charter School. Headmaster Kevin Andrews liked the idea and worked to secure about $75,000 in grants.

Working with Neighborhood House staff, they selected children who could benefit from the program. They observed the children in class, examined records, administered tests, and then set about hiring teachers and devising class schedules. Their hope is that the program is successful enough to make it a national model for summer literacy programs.

"We were convinced we could put something together that worked," Duke said. "It's been a terrific experience."