Project Description
Jessy Ohl ranked among the lowest-performing students of four first-grade classrooms at Denison (Iowa) Elementary School in 1992. After a full series of lessons, he was successfully reading higher-level texts and writing stories. His academic success continued — through speech, oratory, debate, and poetry contests and high school honors to a double doctorate in political science and communications from University. Now a successful lobbyist in Washington, DC, Jessy credits his family and his teachers for his accomplishments.
“I believe that the people we become are the results of what we experienced, learned, and read. It’s scary to think of who I might be today if I wouldn’t have been able to learn from books. I realized I owed [Reading Recovery teacher] Mrs. Baughman and my other teachers a great deal, for without them I wouldn’t have become the person I was destined to be. … I am certain wherever I go, I will get there from reading and I’ll be ready for it, due in great part to Reading Recovery.”