UI students to tutor kids at the Broadway Center this summer
Trystan Woods is used to learning. Now he’s learning to teach.
The 24-year-old University of Iowa student spent Monday afternoon in tutor training for the Broadway Neighborhood Center’s summer reading program.
“I wanted to be involved in the community,” Woods said. “I have a lot of free time this summer; I didn’t want to waste it.”
Woods and about 55 other tutors — around 10 of them current or former University of Iowa students — will help area elementary-school children improve their reading skills as part of the Broadway Center’s summer one-on-one tutoring program.
After orientation meetings Sunday and Monday, the new recruits are ready to start.
The summer tutoring program is the brainchild of recruitment coordinator Gary Sanders, an Iowa City man who saw a problem: Kids were falling behind in their reading skills.
Now, he’s trying to fix it with a summer reading program.
The tutoring program started in April with 10 elementary school-age students from the Broadway Center and 10 tutors from the Iowa City community, stressing one-on-one interaction.
This summer, the center had around 150 tutor applicants.
“I am so pleased with the turnout of the community,” Sanders said.
This summer’s program benefits from the help of Nancy Porter, a teacher in her last year at Hills Elementary who’s familiar with the style of one-on-one teaching.
Porter teaches in Hills’ reading-recovery program, an intensive one-on-one program that teaches reading skills to first-graders.
“My most brilliant stroke of genius was getting Nancy Porter to train the tutors,” Sanders said.
The prospective tutors met with Porter in one-hour sessions Sunday and Monday at the Broadway Center to learn the finer points of the tutoring program.
Olivia Baker, a recent graduate from the University of Iowa College of Education, also attended Monday’s training session.
Baker, who hopes to eventually find a job as a history teacher, said working with students from the center, many of whom come from low-income homes, will give her valuable job experience.
The tutors learned about reading strategies, she said, but the training really emphasized building relationships with the center’s diverse population.
For Sanders, that’s what it’s all about.
“They come with different needs; they’re from different backgrounds,” he said. “We want them all to read well.”
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