Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2009 > January > 24
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Tutoring rewards all involved
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A blurb in a church bulletin caught Sandra Knighton’s eye.
Her church, Tucker First United Methodist, was in search of some folk willing to take 30 minutes out of their day to read with students at Nesbit Elementary, a Gwinnett County public school in Tucker, near Lucky Shoals Park.
Knighton, a retiree, met the most important criterion: she enjoyed being around children. “I have a lot of nieces and nephews and grandnieces and nephews,” she told me.
So she signed up.
Last year, she was matched with a second-grade girl. The experience was so rewarding she asked if she could add another student. “You know, I was already down there anyway, spending 30 minutes with one child,” she said.
This year, Knighton has returned to Nesbit, one of 17 volunteers who reads to about 25 students Monday through Thursday. They comprise a program called Reading Partners, a community outreach initiative created by Tucker First. Church member Sally Crawford, an educator who has worked at Nesbit since it opened in the mid-1990s, oversees the program, one she deems inspirational and vital.
“This is not an original idea,” she told me, “but it’s tried and true. It’s even more poignant in this day and time when we need to reach out to everybody, and if we can do it through the children, that’s great.”
All too often people tend to sit back, moan and groan about this, that and the other, yet not lift a finger — in this case, a book — to effect change. Comfort, for them, comes through complaining, in being smug and self-righteous. Always on the right side.
Naturally, Reading Partners serves an academic purpose. Marginal students, it is hoped, will expand their vocabulary and sharpen their sense of comprehension. In essence, they’ll become better readers. But the residual effects are just as worthy though immeasurable by the usual means, standardized tests and such.
“Some of these children have parents who are struggling from an economic standpoint,” said Crawford, who’s retired but works part-time as Nesbit’s parent instructional support coordinator. “It’s hard for the parents to spend time with the children because they are working long hours and are tired and exhausted. The volunteer is not a parent or a teacher, but just a friend who sits with them, talks with them and serves as a tutor, and in many instances, a mentor. We are out there thinking we are going to do all these academic things, but the true power is in the relationship these children have with these adults.”
And in Knighton’s case, the relationship is strong.
One day Crawford was in a third-grade teacher’s classroom when a little girl approached her. She wanted to know if Knighton — who’d been her reading partner last year — would be visiting the school again this year.
“When I told her yes, she started jumping up and down,” Crawford said. “Both girls seemed very excited.”
What the girls didn’t know was that Knighton had asked if she could continue working with them. She reads to them one at a time when she visits on Wednesdays, and she makes sure they are comprehending what they are reading.
“Since they are Hispanic, I ask them certain words,” Knighton said. “They are very honest. They’ll say they don’t know if they don’t know. I get hugs and smiles from both girls. With children, it’s very rewarding. It doesn’t cost you anything but your time and the little gas to get there. This doesn’t take a whole lot of effort.”
