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This Week Community News
Mentors in
reading program make a difference
By Pamela Willis
October 5, 2016
Worthington City Schools' reading intervention program is in search of
mentors with a "heart to help" elementary school students that struggle
with that skill.
District coordinators of Project Mentoring in Ohio for Reading
Excellence hope to find more people willing to become mentors and read
to Worthington students.
Jennifer Wene, Worthington's chief academic officer, said the district
is in its 11th year of providing Project MORE tutoring.
"We currently have Project MORE in all 10 of our elementary buildings,"
she said. "We have about 425 volunteer mentors but would love more."
Jacquie Schmittauer, who coordinates the program district-wide and at
Worthington Park Elementary School specifically, said the
research-based reading intervention program gives students 30 minutes
of interaction with a volunteer tutor four times a week.
"Younger readers become more confident as they read with the same
experienced readers through each week of school," she said. "Each
volunteer helps one of four days.
"Having four people help a student practice reading and graphing their
own results is a big motivator for students," she said.
Schmittauer said this year's program began last week.
"We are hoping to add more students to the program as we get more
volunteers to help," she said.
Lasting relationships can grow from the program.
"The first day of school, I had three different young readers who
participated in the program last year ask me, 'When does Project MORE
start?' she said. "They talk about their reading mentors with such
emotion, hoping they can do it again."
Reading intervention specialists such as Schmittauer work closely with
classroom teachers to help keep students progressing.
"It's exciting to see how much they improve throughout the school
year," she said. "The more volunteers each building can get, the more
students that can participate in the program.
"Each volunteer needs only 30 minutes at a school to help change the
trajectory for a student," she said. "When students gain confidence in
reading, they become confident in all academic areas, because reading
is in every area of the curriculum."
Schmittauer said volunteer mentors are often retired seniors, college
students, high school students, parents, grandparents and "even people
working in the administrative offices of Worthington Schools."
"We also have confident sixth-grade readers that love helping 'the
little guys' learn to read," she said. "It is amazing to see our older
students as leaders and teachers.
"It is a truly amazing program, but it can't be done if you don't have
the volunteers," she said.
Wene said people could learn about Project MORE by viewing the video at
worthington.k12.oh.us/domain/776 or sending an email to
projectmore@wscloud.org.
Project MORE is funded by the Ohio Department of Education Office for
Exceptional Children.
It originally was intended to help increase the reading levels of
students with disabilities, but also has been successful for students
at risk of retention because of weak reading skills.
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