Dear Mrs. Thompson,

Thank you for bringing ITA into my life.  It has helped me be able to be who I am today by helping me be able to read and achieve my dreams.  I don't know where I would be without it.

When I was in Kindergarten, I coul.dn't wait to get to first grade and learn how to read.  Imaging my disappointment when I wasn't able to read.  I was embarrassed because all the other kinds were able to but I was not.  I hated school and I hated myself.  This started to change the summer after second grade when I met weekly with a women who used ITA to help me learn to read.  She made learning fun by having me read stories in ITA and write my own stories in ITA.  In third grade, I moved to a new town and I entered the ITA program in my new school and by the end of the year I was able to graduate from the program.  I had gone from being able to read well below my grade level to being able to read above my grade level.  Best of all, I liked to do it.

When I entered high school, I loved reading and writing, and I was on my way to becoming an author.  I spent most of my free time curled up with a good book or writing a story that I one day hoped to get published.  At the end of my freshman year of high school I received the Freshman Portfolio Award, which was given to one freshman student for outstanding writing.  This award would not have been possible without the help I received from ITA because of the obvious reasons and because I would have continued to hate school.  I went on to be in Honors English in my junior year of high school.

I am now entering my senior year as a Social Work major and a Psychology minor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.  I just returned from a semester in Mexico where I learned about immigration, culture and much more while working at becoming fluent in Spanish.

Once again, thank you.  I know that the ITA program has helped many kids and I hope that it continues to help many more.

Sincerely,

Jessica Bellock