Volunteers help struggling readers catch up to their classmates

Sometimes all it takes for a young, struggling reader to become a successful reader is a reading buddy, a patient adult who listens to her read.

That’s exactly what Marilyn Schmeling and hundreds of other volunteers do through Everyone A Reader, a terrific volunteer program that trains them in just three hours to work with young readers who need a little help bringing out their inner reader.

“I really enjoy watching the kids,” said Schmeling, whose granddaughters attend the San Diego school where she volunteers. “You can really see a difference from when they started reading with you. They gain confidence.”

The program, sponsored by the San Diego County Office of Education, has trained thousands of volunteers at about 150 schools. Many of the volunteers are parents who already help at their child’s elementary school.

Fifteen minutes is all it takes

Cindy Dunlevy, a language arts project specialist and a former teacher who trains the volunteers, said just 15 minutes of reading aloud to an adult several times a week can help students reading below their grade level catch up with their peers. She’s eager to add more schools and more volunteers to her roster.

“To become an independent reader, children need to work at it, but we don’t want them to be frustrated,” Dunlevy said.

That’s where a little bit of training can pay huge dividends. Training that the volunteers use can easily help parents help their kids at home. (To learn more, read Turning a struggling reader into a strong reader.)

Amazing results

Ivi Turner, a teacher at Ellen Browning Scripps Elementary School in the San Diego Unified School District, said the school has a lot of parent volunteers and a fair number of students who are reading below their grade level. So when she first heard of Everyone A Reader about four years ago, Turner jumped at the chance to try it out.

“I thought, ‘My gosh, let’s see what we can do,’” she said. “It’s been amazing. Across the board, we’re seeing kids reading better.”

The school’s 23 tutors, including Schmeling, work one-on-one with a student for about 15 minutes, generally while sitting in the back of their classroom. Ideally, a student meets with a tutor several times a week.

Schmeling spent part of a recent Friday morning in Jeannine Corry’s first-grade class working with four students. (Schmeling spends two full days and part of another day working with students. Most tutors volunteer a few hours each week.)

Her first student was Cameron, a talkative boy with strawberry blond hair and a sweet disposition. The first book he read was all about animals found on a farm. When they reached a part about rabbits, Cameron had to share a story about the six rabbits at his house.

“He gets distracted,” Schmeling said in the tone of a kind grandmother happy to listen to a young boy’s story.

When Cameron pronounced “hog” with a long o, she helped him say it with a short o. When he stuggled to read the word “quack,” Schmeling asked him, “What do ducks say?” All the while, she praised him repeatedly for his effort.

Ready to meet the reading challenge

Corry took a few minutes with Schmeling to go over the students’ progress. All four children are showing marked improvements and Corry was eager to have Schmeling select more challenging books for all of them.

Tutors have access to an Everyone A Reader library at the school with books targeted for a specific reading level. With summer not far away, Corry and Schmeling agreed the children were ready for greater reading challenges.

Schmeling’s final student of the morning was Ricky who used her index fingers with their pink fingernail polish to guide her through the books. Ricky has that sweet sing-song voice that makes reading with a small child a magical experience.

One of the books she read was “A Day at Camp,” a story she had read with Schmeling before. (Kids read a book three times before moving on to a new one.) When she read a sentence and used the word “hide” instead of the correct work “hike,” Schmeling asked her if that sounded right.

When Ricky corrected herself, Schmeling smiled and responded, “You’re pretty smart.”

Ricky smiled and said, “Thank you.”

To learn more: Additional information on becoming a volunteer or starting an Everyone A Reader program at a school in San Diego County is available from Cindy Dunlevy, who can be reached at (858) 292-3682 and cidunlevy@sdcoe.net. You can also get more information from the Everyone A Reader Web site.