Chunking? Jane Lyons of north San Bernardino would try anything to help her son learn to read.

Wading through a school district bureaucracy to get appropriate tutoring for Adam so frustrated Lyon that she turned to another neighborhood school, Cal State San Bernardino.

Hoping to get help from a graduate student, Lyons was thrilled when Mary Jo Skillings, a literacy professor, volunteered to teach Adam two years ago.

Skillings helped Adam, now 8, visually organize reading material in "chunks" instead of relying on phonics, a sound-oriented method that had failed her son in class and one-on-one tutoring, Lyons said.

A mother's crusade for affordable, individualized tutoring and a developer's desire to help families moving into his upscale north San Bernardino project led to the birth of an on-campus literacy center that will open this spring.

The pilot program, funded by a $350,000, three-year pledge from developer Watson & Associates, will provide tutoring for second and third graders at Palm Avenue and North Park Elementary schools, said Skillings, a center founder.

Though starting in north San Bernardino, the program will be opened to students from across the Inland area, Skillings said. Teachers may refer young students to be tutored by certified teachers who are studying for master's degrees in reading literacy, she said.

Some graduate students already work in the San Bernardino schools, but the center will accommodate students on Cal State's campus, Skillings said.

There is a pressing need for additional literacy programs to complement efforts in the 58,000-student San Bernardino City Unified School District, she said. Teachers don't have enough time to work individually with struggling children, Skillings added. Local libraries have no professional tutoring programs, she learned.

In San Bernardino city schools, English is not the primary language for 1-in-5 students, and recent test scores show that fewer than 19 percent of all elementary school children meet state standards in English language arts. With tight school budgets and a growing enrollment - the district projects adding 2,000 students a year - officials are pleased that a developer wants to help local students, said Linda Hill, district spokeswoman. The district also looks forward to another educational partnership with the university, she added.

Hill said the school district offers an array of reading services that are tailored to different learning styles of students. However, Lyons said resources were limited at North Park elementary and were directed at students with the biggest reading problems. Adam didn't qualify, Lyons said.

At age seven, he couldn't read a kindergarten book, said Lyons, a married mother of two. She quit her job as a county auditor to concentrate on her children's education. She became a substitute teacher.

Lyons said she couldn't afford $60-an-hour lessons offered by private tutoring companies. "We live paycheck to paycheck, like most people, and we found out there's nothing in the community unless you have a lot of money."

Skillings' experience tutoring Adam led her to research whether literacy programs were widely available. She discovered they weren't and looked for a way the university could fill the need. The result is the planned literacy center at Cal State made possible by a gift from developer Jim Watson, president of Watson & Associates of Seal Beach.

"He wanted to make a difference in the community, initially in the area where he is building homes" and then farther out, said Patricia Arlen, dean of the College of Education.

The university is always seeking private donations, such as Watson's gift, to fund education programs that can benefit area school children, said Ronna Kivistocq, director of development for the College of Education at Cal State San Bernardino.