Reading: Tutoring

An After-School Reading Tutoring Program

 

Today's Snack: Since we're "unpeeling" the basics of an after-school tutoring program, why don't you "unpeel" one or two delicious little clementines? These little citrus fruits are chock full of vitamin C. They'd be good with a glass of orange juice to really stoke your fuel tank.

 

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Today's Supplies:

 

Plastic storage tub | mailing label | spiral notebook

 

One "easy" picture book | one book keyed to the student's interest that may be fiction or nonfiction | one textbook page or old test from the student's classroom

 

2 sharpened No. 2 pencils | 1 sharpened red pencil

 

Index cards | large (2"-3") binder ring | stickers, stamps

 

Paperback or used dictionary

 

3-ring binder of training materials,

including the Ayres spelling list of high-frequency words,

the 30 rules of spelling,

and a list of After School Treats writing activities from this website

 

Paper copy of the Reading Report Form

(next item posted in this website's tutoring series)

 

 

            Here are some ideas for organizing a reading tutoring program for an after-school program. It is anticipated that the tutors will work with the students on standard lesson plans for a half-hour once or twice a week in the late afternoons. Cost: approximately $25 per student per school year. You should solicit mini-grants and sponsorships to cover costs so that there is no cost for students and tutors - other than buying or making each other a birthday card!

 

            After-school program staff: duties include soliciting grants and scholarships to fund the program; providing the students and the space; recruiting volunteers; hosting the training (and providing a snack and beverage!); making sure that tutors are informed if students are absent to save them an unnecessary trip; liaisoning with parents and teachers in obtaining data about students, inviting parents to tutoring sessions and pizza parties, and keeping them informed of progress; storing tutoring tubs and in some cases, books and other supplies; distributing end-of-semester reports to after-school stakeholders, tutors, parents, teachers and the public.

 

Volunteer coordinator: this is the essential person that you will need to run the program. Ideally, this person will work for free as a public service and has literacy credentials. This person doesn't have to be a reading specialist or a certified teacher, but it helps if this person has excellent communication skills and believes strongly in helping students read better. The coordinator will assemble the tutoring tubs and the training binder, plus replenish tubs once a week, take calls from tutors who are calling in sick, assign substitutes whenever possible; trouble-shoot tutoring problems, etc. Handling 25 to 30 tutor-student relationships is probably the most you can expect from a volunteer; for greater numbers, you'll have to hire someone at least part-time. This job should take 3-5 hours a week once the training has been given and the tutoring tubs are assembled.

 

            Reading specialist: it is crucial to have a professional reading specialist consult on your tutoring program. Perhaps you can find someone who will work for free, or for an honorarium for providing the training, below, as well as ongoing support for the volunteer coordinator. The school librarian nearest the after-school setting might be a possible candidate to help you in the off-school hours.

 

            Volunteer tutors: recruit them from corporations and organizations that already support your after-school or its mission, find high school or college students looking for service learning opportunities, or ask for volunteers from area business, professional, civic and church groups, retirement centers, the public library, bookstores . . . anywhere there are adults who want to make a difference for a child. Your after-school organization should screen volunteers for safety reasons and keep results on file. Make it clear to volunteers that they will be expected to attend a three-hour training session, plus one (or two) 30-minute tutoring sessions each week your after-school is in session, and it is very important that they be on time or a little early, and "call in sick" when necessary so that the students they are matched with aren't disappointed.

 

            Substitutes: it is adviseable to recruit and train one substitute for every 10 volunteer tutors, and if they don't "sub" for anyone during any given week, they can help the volunteer coordinator "pull books" and replenish supplies, for example.

 

            Training: Volunteers should be given a three-hour, hands-on training course, with content determined by the volunteer coordinator in consultation with a reading specialist. There should be demonstrations of typical tutoring situations, information on what to expect, background on reading disabilities, an explanation of the materials and how to use them, and an opportunity for one or two run-throughs of the basic tutoring lesson plan.

 

Tutoring tubs: each student/tutor team will have a plastic storage tub with their supplies for the tutoring session. The volunteer coordinator will remove last week's books and put in new ones, as needed, replenishing other supplies as they are used up. These tubs should be stored near the space where the tutoring will take place. It is perfectly fine to take them outside on nice afternoons.

 

            Students: for safety reasons, students should go by their first names only, and tutors should go by their last name and courtesy title (student=Maddy, tutor=Mrs. Williams, Mr. Smith). Students will be advised not to give out their address or any other information except their birthdays to the tutor, and vice versa. The only task of a student is to bring some kind of classroom-related reading material to each tutoring session, to go over it with the tutor, to build the student's classroom confidence

 

Tutors: can tell the student what organization they are coming from, and why they are doing this, and of course as the tutoring relationship continues, can communicate as they feel comfortable. But they will be encouraged NOT to buy the students gifts or give the student anything of value, except a birthday card

 

            Student-Tutor match: by taking a short interest survey, students can be matched with tutors based on interests they have in common, so that various genres and topics can help build the relationship and trust.

 

Parents: a note will be sent home before the tutoring session begins, to explain the goal, introduce the tutor, and ask the parent to sign and send back a permission slip so that the volunteer coordinator can contact the student's teacher, as described below. Parents also will be mailed a progress report on how the tutoring is going in mid-semester, and will be invited to a semester-ending pizza party at which they can meet the tutor, hear their student read aloud if desired, see the spelling deck and writing notebook, etc.

 

Teachers: with parental permission, a note will be sent to each student's teacher, asking for results of the student's latest standardized reading test, and the teacher's suggestions for reading and writing subskills that would benefit the student to work on during tutoring. Teachers also will receive a mid-semester progress report and will be invited to the semester-ending pizza parties. They will be asked to forward the student's new standardize test results to be compared to the results of similar students who were not in the tutoring program, to help with evaluation.

 

Books: if there are not enough books in the associated school library, or in the after-school program's own library, and borrowing can't be arranged through the public library or an existing literacy organization, then the tutoring program should run a community-wide book drive to obtain reading materials for the program.

 

            Evaluation: a semester report about the tutoring program will be compiled by the volunteer coordinator, and distributed to after-school program stakeholders, the tutors, parents, teachers, and the public, including comparisons in standardized test scores before and after the tutoring sessions on an aggregate basis for the students who participated vs. students similarly situated who did not participate.