Tutoring program boasts higher literacy in school children
Utah State University students who are interested in helping elementary school students with reading are in luck. The America Reads program is now hiring.
America Reads is a federally mandated program run out of the Academic Resource Center (ARC). It provides individual reading assistance to elementary school students in Cache Valley using qualified USU students with Federal Work Study Financial Aid.
Carol Rosenthal assistant director for the ARC, said the program was started in 1997 when President Bill Clinton and Congress implemented the America Reads Challenge and gave money to schools for literacy programs.
USU started using money from work study funds and dedicated it to improving reading levels. In 2000, the government made it a requirement for universities and colleges to take money from their work study funds and put it toward literacy tutoring programs.
America Reads focuses on students being able to read well by the end of the third grade, Rosenthal said. Studies show that a large percentage of fourth-graders are below reading level. Studies also show that children who cannot read well by the end of third grade are much less likely to do well in school.
Rosenthal said it is very important that elementary schools have tutoring programs.
“There is no way teachers can manage all the different reading levels,” she said. “Studies show amazing results of one-on-one tutoring.”
Teresa Guthrie, a literacy tutor, said the program has made her want to be a school counselor. She said reading affects everything in her students’ lives. If they don’t know how to read and do well in school, it is hard for them to have good self-esteem.
“You feel you’re really making a difference,” Guthrie said. “I love to see how much you’ve helped students and how much they’ve improved.”
Carrie Warner, another literacy tutor for the program, said she has one boy who, when she first started tutoring him, couldn’t read and had a hard time decoding what he was reading. He is now progressing at a faster rate than all her other students.
“It’s rewarding to see kids move up and move on and see how excited they are about their progression,” Warner said.
She also said that being a literacy tutor is a hard job, because a person has to want to be there and a student can sense if he does not want to be there. The hardest thing about Warner’s job is coming up with her own ideas about what is going to work for each student, because each student is different, she said.
Rosenthal said the tutors always say how much they love their job, and that love is reciprocated.
“In the public schools teachers love the tutors and say they don’t know what they would do without them,” she said.
She also said the program has been so successful that schools have been turned away, because the program doesn’t have enough tutors for them.
The program currently has 39 tutors in 10 elementary schools in Cache Valley and four program assistants.
America Reads is looking for more tutors for next year. They have 20 positions to fill.
In order to be hired to be an America Reads literacy tutor students must
– have applied for and received financial aid for 2003-04
– have a minimum of a 2.75 cumulative GPA
– work 12 hours a week, and half of those hours have to be in the morning
– have their own car
– commit to one year
– take a mandatory tutor-training class fall semester
– demonstrate a genuine desire to work with kids on their reading.
The literacy tutors have worked about 11,600 hours from September to March. They will have worked over 13,000 hours by the end of April.
“As you can see, this provides a substantial contribution to the community and a substantial opportunity for students to have a good job. It’s a win-win situation,” Rosenthal said.
Students can contact the ARC for an application.
For more information on America Reads, go to www.usu.edu/arc/america_reads/index.htm or call 797-4027.
-erina@cc.usu.edu