Email
PrintOpening Books, Broadening Minds
When the pages turn, children learn
(page 1 of 2)
“You don’t want to read with us—we’re losers.”
That’s what a couple of kids told Alice Finley the day she started working with them as part of the Volunteer Tutoring Program. But by the end of that academic year, the same kids begged Finley to let them stay late after school to finish reading their favorite book.
Such dramatic turnarounds are not unusual, according to Pat Willert of rural Victor. She’s the coordinator of the Volunteer Tutoring Program, now in its sixth year and under the auspices of Teton Valley Education Foundation.
In 2003, after raising four kids and retiring from a fifteen-year stint teaching special education in Jackson, Willert wondered: “What am I going to do with myself?” She and friends Kate West and Alice Stevenson “started talking about what we could do to help the schools,” she says. With her friends’ encouragement, Willert started researching successful literacy-improvement programs around the country.
By the following autumn, the Volunteer Tutoring Program began with ten volunteers—several of them, like Willert, West, and Stevenson, former educators.
Since the program’s inception, approximately sixty students, coming from all three public elementary schools in Teton County School District #401, have benefited from it each year—and usually from the same one or two volunteers who work with them twice weekly throughout the school year during a designated reading hour. The program is designed for students who have trouble keeping up, for whatever reason, Willert notes, and concentrates mostly on improving reading skills, but integrates work on writing skills as well.
Individual classroom teachers identify children who would benefit most from the one-on-one experience. “It might be for a year, it might be more,” Willert says.
She credits the program’s success to support from administrators like Jannifer Cooke, principal at Victor and Tetonia Elementary; Sarah Kaiser, second-grade teacher in Tetonia; the late Charlotte Bahr (who “really got the ball rolling” at Driggs Elementary, but was tragically
killed in an automobile accident in November 2008); and others in the school district.
Tutoring involves a one- or two-hour commitment each week for nine months, depending on whether or not the position is shared. Volunteers choose what grade of student they’d like to work with—kindergarten through fifth grade—and at which elementary school.
“People want a school for convenience and a time that will fit in their schedule,” Willert says.
Willert keeps track of the calendar, as people do come and go throughout the year. She also leads a minimum of two training sessions a year, and has provided white boards and educational games for tutors’ use. Volunteers then go through classroom or school libraries for reading materials. Some, like Finley, purchase a book or two for their students so they will own at least one book of their very own.
From the start, the program was a natural fit for the area’s retired teachers. Former elementary-school principal Judy Blair tutored, as has Bonnie Krafchuk, who brings expertise in English as a Second Language. Two other former educators, Shelley Gaylord and Lou Gaylord, filled in over the past two years when the program lacked an adequate number of people to fill all the holes.
But previous classroom experience is not a requirement, Willert emphasizes. “With the training we provide and a passion for kids, anyone can be a successful tutor,” she says. Indeed, a diversity of backgrounds among the volunteers—take, for instance, attorney Marie Tyler—strengthens the mix. Two men, Skip Dempsey and Jim Schulz, have tutored every year since the program began.
Why would Finley, who lives in Teton Valley and with her husband John owns McDonald’s in Jackson, start to tutor? “I just always wanted to read with kids,” she says. “By the fifth grade, if they don’t find any enjoyment in reading, they’ll just get lost in middle school.”
The program faces several challenges, including a shortage of volunteers. Willert is always on the lookout for new recruits.
“There is always more need than there are tutors to help,” says Lori Kramer, executive director of the Teton Valley Education Foundation (TVEF), which recently partnered with the tutoring program. “Part of the education foundation’s vision is to make schools part of the community. In doing so, we wanted to find a way for people to volunteer, and this is just one avenue.”
TVEF will pay some of the program’s miscellaneous costs, including offering financial assistance to cover the $40 fee for a requisite background check, which was previously paid in full by volunteers themselves. Willert also hopes to invest in some specific tutoring programs with appropriate-level materials and with teachers’ notes....(Continued)
