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SALT LAKE CITY -- Reading is a skill that can determine success in life; however, about 33,000 of Utah's youngest students don't have the skills they need. Educators agree that if students are not reading on target by third grade, they likely never will.
KSL conducted a partnership pilot project and shared the results during a special KSL report Project: Tutor. Last March, tutor training began at five Utah elementary schools. Tutoring programs are nothing new, but what made this different was the sheer numbers. Instead of a few volunteers, schools got as many as a few dozen volunteers.
"If I had a dream, it would be that people would walk 10 minutes away from their home and find a place to serve," said Windsor Elementary volunteer Kathy Gowans.
To get involved with volunteer tutoring, contact Utah AmeriCorps Director Gloria Skanchy at (801) 737-7403 or by email at skanchyg@ogdensd.org.
Schools selected students who needed extra help and told us how many tutors they needed. LDS Humanitarian Services worked with local church leaders to find volunteer tutors.
"One of the things we want to do with this program is teach a love for reading, and you can't do that if you don't have a relationship with the kids," said Ron Humphries, with LDS Humanitarian Services.
AmeriCorps trained the tutors and did pre- and post testing. The latest results show such encouraging progress in a short time.
"We've seen the children increase in the test scores, in their confidence, in their own abilities. We've seen communities rise up together and come in and help these students," explained Gloria Skanchy, with AmeriCorps.
At Riverdale Elementary, 16 of the 21 students are now at grade level after seven weeks of early morning tutoring. At Ogden's Taylor Elementary two boys made two grades of progress in eight weeks.
"You know, I had fun reading," explained second-grade student Henry Heaps.
Third-grader Leonardo Mendoza credits his tutor for his improvement. "She helped me understand words that I don't know."
At Logan's Bridger Elementary, 27 of 29 students are now at grade level. And at Salt Lake's Washington Elementary one of their top performers went from hating reading to thumbs up and one grade of progress.
"Teaching a child to read has so many steps and it takes so many different people working together to make it happen," said Washington Elementary principal Becky Pittam.
E-mail: dwimmer@ksl.com
