( Preface Project)

This fall, the McCallie School and East Lake Elementary here in Chattanooga joined a multilingual program to improve childhood literacy.

J.T. Wu - who graduated from McCallie in 2012 - is the founder and executive director of Preface, a nonprofit in Atlanta.

Through Preface, students at McCallie who are studying Spanish are reading and talking in English with Hispanic students at East Lake whose English is their second language. 

I spoke with J.T. Wu, Frank Watkins, a Spanish teacher and head of McCallie’s language department - and Emily Clegg, the parent volunteer coordinator at East Lake.