Students help students with reading skills
It's students helping students at Emily Brittain Elementary School.
Fifteen Slippery Rock University freshmen education majors are helping second-graders build reading skills and have fun doing it.
Jeremy Lynch, SRU assistant professor of special education, came up with the idea and asked for volunteers. “The students jumped at the opportunity,” he said.
The Slippery Rock contingent spends 45 minutes each Tuesday at the school organizing and running an after-school reading skills development program.
“The SRU students quickly realized that simply adding another hour to the day's formal instruction, after a full day of school work, would not work for the second-graders. So, they set about devising educational games that would involve play, with the learning part buried in the fun,” Lynch said.
“The SRU students have been working over the past month to develop targeted instructional activities that engage their young learners and make learning fun,” Lynch said.
“I had spent time last spring talking with the school's principal, Jeff Mathieson, and he agreed to have his school join in the program,” Lynch said.
The school identified 17 second-graders out of 58 who needed extra work in the language arts, he said. The skill-building program is mostly related to language arts and reading skills.
“We did not want to do the traditional program of helping the students with their homework, so we tried to come up with a new way to approach learning. The SRU volunteers devised activities that get the second-graders up and moving. They adapted a version of the game Twister and a version of Candyland. All of the learning is interactive and fun,” he said.
“The program began on Oct. 22 and will run for six weeks. It concludes Dec. 3,” said Mathieson.
Mathieson said his school, as well as several others in the Butler School District, are part of the Professional Development School Partnership.
“This PDS partnership is a wonderful opportunity, and it allows for college students who are majoring in the field of education to partner with highly qualified teachers within our schools and practice the skills and strategies that they are learning within their collegiate classrooms, while at the same time extending opportunities for students within our classrooms,” Mathieson said.
He said the school had partnered with SRU students for similar after-school programs during the last school year.
For Brian Welsh, an early childhood and special education major from Freeport, volunteering was an easy decision.
“I am working with Dr. Lynch as part of the College of Education Professor Protégé program so it was just natural to take advantage of this opportunity. My ultimate goal is to become a teacher, and this project just exposes me to another facet of teaching. I thought this would be a great experience and benefit,” Welsh said.
“I just got back from working with the students on reading comprehension and with working with them on consonants and vowels; we were concentrating on 'long—e' words by using an innovative game so we could have fun while learning the materials,” he said.
Jesse Lincoln, a secondary education and biology major from Coudersport, also joined the program as a volunteer.
“My friend Brian (Welsh) got me involved. I am trying to help the students improve their reading level. We are concentrating on reading comprehension and understanding and identifying vowels,” Lincoln said.
“I've been with the project for a couple of weeks, and I plan to stick with it. I think it is a lot of fun — and also educational to the youngsters involved as we make games that are interactive. It will help me when I get out there to teach as a career,” he said.
The SRU student volunteers have agreed to a six-week program, but Lynch said he hopes to be able to expand and extend the project further in the school year.
When asked if the school would use Slippery Rock students again, Mathieson said, “Absolutely. While the target grade-levels have yet to be determined and the activities have yet to be planned, Dr. Lynch and I have already discussed looking toward the spring semester and determining what additional opportunities may be possible.”
