DePaul University’s Family Lab has not only helped improve Antonio Ercoli’s reading skills. It has helped improve his self-confidence.

“This is our second year in the program,” said his father, Steve Ercoli. “He likes going there. The staff is great and really friendly. They’re really helpful.”

Since Antonio has been in the program, the seventh-grader’s reading skills have significantly improved. Progress has been noted in all areas addressed, including word identification, spelling, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills. “They’re doing a wonderful job,” Steve Ercoli said.

A single parent, Steve Ercoli said Antonio’s teachers at Agassiz Elementary School had recommended private tutoring for his son, but the family couldn’t afford it. The Family Lab in DePaul’s School of Education provides tutoring services on a sliding scale depending on a family’s ability to pay.

Families come from as far as Indiana and commute more than an hour so their children can get the help they need at the lab. Located in the Schmitt Academic Center, 2320 N. Kenmore Ave., on DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus, the lab has served students age 6 to 16 in the Chicago area for 40 years. Children with learning disabilities and/or reading difficulties are able to fully utilize the diagnostic and remedial services available in the lab’s newly renovated space. It has served nearly 1,300 clients since 1998.

The state-of-the-art facility is equipped with the latest technology and equipment, including tutoring and counseling rooms with cameras, sound monitors and computers so professors can monitor graduate student workers and offer support and feedback. DePaul graduate students in the final quarters of the reading and learning disabilities program tutor students in reading and other subjects to bring their clients’ academic skills up to grade level while fulfilling their program’s practicum component.

“While the clients we see gain hands-on tutoring support services, graduate students working toward a reading specialist degree receive clinical experience,” said Julie Harris, Family Lab coordinator, who is currently pursuing her master’s degree in education at DePaul. “It’s a wonderful setting for learning to take place on both ends.”

Soon, graduate students in human services and counseling, nursing and other DePaul programs will be able to provide families with myriad additional services while fulfilling their practicum requirements. Students and staff are working to expand lab services to include health screenings for children and adults, wellness seminars and sign language classes to help new parents communicate with their infants.

“The best-practice concept in education is wraparound services that recognize the multiple needs of students,” said Beverly Trezek, co-director of the lab and an assistant professor in the language, literacy and specialized instruction program.

Joy Whitman, co-director of the lab and an associate professor in the School of Education’s human services and counseling department, said providing clients with counseling services would benefit the Family Lab and the graduate program by providing students with clinical experience. “It’s a win-win situation, and it allows us to provide more services to community residents,” Whitman said.

DePaul has one of the largest schools of education in the Chicago area, offering degree programs in early childhood education; elementary, secondary education and physical education; special education; bilingual/bicultural education; curriculum studies; educational leadership; human services and counseling; and language, literacy and specialized instruction. Its students are actively involved in learning, analyzing, discussing, assessing and applying their knowledge and skills in practical settings

For more information about the Family Lab, visit http://education.depaul.edu/AboutUs/CentersInitiatives/FamilyLab/index.asp or call 773-325-7745.