St. C. Tutoring Project Seeks Members
More volunteers are needed as reading mentors for Project MORE at St. Clairsville Elementary School.
Project MORE, which stands for Mentoring in Ohio for Reading Excellence, is a statewide program. Sheila Baum, new coordinator at St. Clairsville Elementary, said, “We’re the only one in Belmont County that does it currently.”
Baum said the program at St. Clairsville Elementary is in its fourth year. “It is a mentoring program to help students who are struggling with reading skills … to build them up to the level where they should be,” she explained.
The number of participants varies from year to year. Testing is being done at the elementary school to determine which students need to be mentored during the 2016-17 academic year.
At St. Clairsville Elementary, mentoring is offered to children in grades 1-4, Baum said. Other districts in the state also conduct the program at the middle school level.
Many of the mentors are parents or members of area churches. Students from St. Clairsville Middle School and St. Clairsville High School also participate as mentors to the younger children.
Through a new partnership with the St. Clairsville Public Library, members of the library staff plan to serve as mentors this year, Baum said. She also is contacting education professors at area universities to encourage students to volunteer for the program.
Baum said, “We like to have volunteers commit to one hour a week at least.” Mentors need to commit for a whole year; the program runs from October through March 31. Potential volunteers are asked to call Baum, 740-232-4423.
“We do a training program. It’s very short; it’s very simple to do for mentors,” she said, adding, “There’s always someone here to help mentors.”
Describing the program, Baum said, “It’s something rewarding. It does build up the community. You don’t have to be from St. Clairsville (to be a mentor).”
In fact. current mentors include residents from Bellaire and Moundsville. “It’s more than just St. Clairsville people. There’s always so many people interested in helping,” she said.
Project MORE involves a four-day process for students and mentors. “We have supplied materials. It’s not just reading a book with a kid,” Baum explained.
The program operates Monday through Thursday, with each session lasting 30 minutes. “We try to get a mentor to work for an hour increment, to work with two students,” she said.
On the first day, a student reads designated material in a “cold read.” A mentor talks with the student about the words and their meaning and demonstrates how to sound out the words. After practice, the child does a “warm read” of the same passage to gauge improvement, Baum said.
The student reads a book with the mentor on the second day, and they work on writing and vocabulary. “We find that repeated reading is best,” the coordinator said.
Fluency practice is the focus of the third day, when the child reads a book independently to the mentor. The fourth day includes a fluency check and a timed reading, or “hot read.” A game related to the lesson can be played at the end of each day’s session, if time allows.
Tracy Rigby, a previous coordinator of Project MORE, said, “A mentor will always work with the same student. The kids look forward to seeing them. A lot of the kids don’t get that one-on-one time at home.”
COMMENTS