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Not unexpectedly, given the circumstances of the children's lives, a great many of them are seriously deficient in reading and in reading comprehension. With professional tutors as well as trained volunteers the Building Blocks for Success after-school programs and the Building Blocks Summer Programs have provided comprehensive educational support to children and youth residing in shelters and transitional residences.
Upon entering an HCEF after-school program, children are assessed by an Afterschool Instructor to determine a child's interests, aptitudes, and needs with regard to literacy. The Afterschool Instructor completes a one-page CLP for each child.
Each child's file is kept by agency education staff and is accessible only to the agency staff, a child's parent, and AfterSchool instructors. Volunteer tutors use a child's CLP to gain a sense of that particular child's strengths and weaknesses. Each plan includes goals and recommended activities to make the most of a child's tutoring sessions. Helping a student work toward achieving her or his individual goals and needs could mean spending extra time playing a phonics game or reading rhyming poetry aloud to a child who is more challenged in those areas. The only rule is: keep it fun!
HCEF has established a partnership with Therapy Dogs International: a great way to "keep it brief and keep it fun." The Pittsburgh Chapter of TDI offers a "Tail Wagging Tutors" program that encourages beginning and reluctant readers to gain confidence and fluency as they read aloud to "their" dogs. Participating children receive certificates of achievement and dog safety activity books.
HCEF — with the help of the Regional Coordinator, Homeless Children's Initiative, Allegheny Intermediate Unit — has created and provided a literacy "toolbox" for each after-school program site. The toolbox includes Apples to Apples Jr., Sentence Words, an inflatable letter ball, a reader's theater, the 24 game, flash cards (a gift from the University of Pittsburgh's CASE Undergraduate Program), magnetic poetry, blank laminated game boards, a Dr. Seuss Twister-style game using letters, and numerous games created by the literacy trainer. As new "tools" are discovered and tested (by the kids, of course), they will be added to the toolbox. In addition, HCEF has worked with the Allegheny County Library Association (ACLA) Book Mobile to provide bi-weekly service to three agency sites where the vehicle can be accommodated.
Here is what children created in one Summer Camp art program. A great way to beautify by recycling. And when work is done, there is nothing better than a walk in the park with friends.
How might you help?
HCEF volunteer tutors are always being sought and as the Afterschool program expands to other family housing agencies, more will be required. To learn about becoming a tutor, please contact Susy Robison, Volunteer Services Manager. Here's what tutors have said to us about this opportunity to get to know and work with "our children":
"Most of my students actually enjoy learning. I wasn't in the same boat at their ages."
"Just working with the kids and having fun is success enough."
Success is "getting students to bypass life troubles by focusing on work, seeing students become 'the ones who work' or the 'smart ones' after seeing them disoriented months before, challenging their writing skills by competing against them!""
Want to learn more? Check out our tutor training video:
(10.26.2015)
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