High school tutors aid younger learners

COLUMBUS -- When Devon Aldana stumbled over a word, Ray Caras urged him to sound it out.

“Bi-noc-u-lars. Try to say it with me,” Caras said.

Aldana, an Emerson Elementary third-grader, repeated the word with Caras. Then, he went on to read the rest of sentence of a story about an owl.

Caras, a 10th-grader at Columbus High School, is among 15 CHS students who are helping tutor Emerson students in reading. Through the Learning Together program started this semester, the students are meeting twice a week at the elementary school. There they read through books in hopes of improving student’s comprehension and fluency, said Katie Comley the Learning Together coordinator and CHS ESL teacher.

Part of what makes the program work is its student-to-student interaction. Comley said the peer tutoring aspect is a plus.

“They (the elementary kids) look up to them and that makes a big difference,” she said.

Also, the tutoring provides the one-on-one contact that some students need.

“If it is a teacher in the classroom, they are teaching in front of 22 other students,” Comley said. Learning Together allows the students to meet for about 45 minutes twice a week.

Another unique part to the program is that both the elementary and high school participants are English language learners and are reading below their grade levels. So, participating in the program helps not only the younger ones, but also the older students practice their reading skills. Comley said the high school students plan the lessons and lead the tutoring sessions. She chooses students who would benefit from doing extra activities as tutors.

Intention is to have the same tutor and learner paired together for 30 sessions. Because a bond is built between the two, Comley also said the bond is extra encouragement to attend school and hopefully reduce absences.

Caras said he has enjoyed being a tutor. He can see the elementary students become more confident.

“I think it is working really well. You see it making a difference with the kids and you make a friendship,” he said. “It makes me feel good. I like little kids, and I have a little brother here.”

The program is only at Emerson Elementary school so far, but Columbus Public Schools Superintendent Paul Hillyer said he would like the program to be incorporated at other elementary buildings as well. Emerson was chosen as the pilot site for several reasons. One is because of its close proximity to the high school. The grade school also had available federal Title I money to help fund the program, Hillyer said.

Most of the materials used for the program were already available in the district, but money was spent for coordinator training and there will be renewal costs for workbooks.

Emerson Principal Jeff Bartels also said his school has a number of students who are English language learners that need the extra assistance to help reach proficiency levels.

Learning Together can also be used to help improve math achievement, but for now reading is the focus. Comley said reading scores including fluency and comprehension will be monitored to see if the tutoring program is having a positive effect on the students.