Early in the year, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra put up a post on their Facebook page asking for substitute tutors for New Haven Reads. Anyone who signed up would receive a voucher for two free tickets to one performance in the NHSO season.*
The substitutes were necessary because New Haven is a college town, (Yale, University of New Haven), and a large number of their regular tutors had gone home for the winter break. I called and asked a little about it and found it was easy to sign up and easy to do. And being an avid reader myself, I wanted to help pass that on in any small way I could.
A little about New Haven Reads: Founded by Christine Alexander in 1998 as a free book distribution program for local children, it grew into a free tutoring center for grades K-12. Over 400 volunteers tutor over 500 students a week, one hour at a time. There is a very long waiting list of students, too.
Sadly, Mrs. Alexander passed away in 2011 but she has left an incredible legacy of literacy and community service for others to continue.
The program is run by certified educators and the tutors work within the guidelines set by them, which makes tutoring easy. The lessons are fun and made to motivate, reward and encourage literacy. In the hour the student spends with a tutor, the student has a set number of tasks including some pretty cool learning games on the computer, reading out loud, a workbook, and their own school homework if they choose. At the end of each session they choose a game to play from the game shelf - all familiar to me and sneakily educational like Battleship. Plus each student can take up to five children's books of their choice from the library shelves, not to borrow but to keep. Every week. And they also have books for adults in the community.
This brings me to another of their functions that needs volunteers - the book library. They accept donations of books for all ages and have volunteers sort them, distribute them and shelve them.
I went for my first tutoring session a few minutes early for training. I was nervous that I am not a natural teacher.
My first student was a second grader, a young man who thought it was really funny when I told him I was new and he'd have to take it easy on me! These kids know the ropes and were showing me where everything was kept and what was what. He started with the workbook, moved to the computer games and did some reading out loud. Then we played Go Fish as his game, and he won 2 out of 3, handily.
I was immediately struck by how serious he took the lessons. If he was unsure of a pronunciation or the meaning of a word, he asked. I found this to be true of all the students I sat with or saw there - they were not afraid to ask questions, and then follow up questions, until they understood context and usage. Words I take for granted may not be in a second grader's everyday vocabulary, such as "thrill". He had to choose an image in his workbook that would represent the word. The images included a roller coaster and he hovered over it with his pencil a moment then asked, "what does 'thrill' mean"?
(Do you know how hard it is to describe thrill to a second grader in his terms??? I've never had to explain it to anyone before. I gave away the answer and went with the roller coaster explanation.)
Another student, a young girl also in second grade, at first stalled quite a bit. But when she sat down and focused I saw that she wasn't disinterested in the reading, she probably just didn't feel like being at a desk with me when there were friends to hang out with. In fact, she was very sharp. She whipped through several pages of the workbook in a short time. An example paragraph that described trout spawning and dying was outside of her realm of experience. She asked me why it swam the wrong way in the river and why it died there and didn't return to the ocean. She wasn't just learning pronunciation, she was learning about the natural world. It was sparking an interest to find out more.
My experience was that all the students I encountered in my brief substituting stint were happy to challenge themselves with sounding out new, big words. They were fine with being corrected and repeating it until they got it right. They all took at least one book home with them.
I attempted to add two more sessions to my original commitment, but life got in the way. I have asked to be added to the substitute roster and when college breaks and other happenings leave New Haven Reads short on tutors, I will be given the opportunity to fill in. I look forward to it.
In the meantime, I am stacking up books for donation to their shelves and checking their wish list against the book store sale racks. They are currently very low on children's books. (Picture books and the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series are especially in demand!) If you would like to join me in donating books or supplies, see their website for details at http://newhavenreads.org. Or to learn more about tutoring, see their Volunteer page, and contact Keri to sign up (her email is there). She and everyone at New Haven Reads was fantastic to deal with.
I know I have a lot of teachers, writers, librarians and readers on my blog and Facebook followers list. But you are not required to be a literary type to help. What I brought to the table was being able to patiently guide a student for an hour, and fall back on
You will notice my countdown banner went from 43 to 39. (Ah, if only my birthdays went that way...) This month I have also made a donation of household goods to Helping Hands Thrift Store and Furniture Bank and gave time to my daughter's school in their bookstore on two afternoons.
I am updating my events calendar as more and more opportunities come my way!
*Of course, as I have made my rule, I am not keeping these Symphony vouchers. I will be donating them to a school auction fundraiser.
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