By Jan Willms
Saint Anthony Park resident Nancy Hauser lives a long way from her grandchildren, who are on the East Coast, and she does not often get to see them. So volunteering with the East Side Learning Center has helped.
Hauser began volunteering when her kids were in grade school, assisting in their classrooms. But she said she never volunteered with any program that had its own syllabus and way of doing things until she connected with ESLC. She is going on her third year with the program.
“This is more organized and structured than the things I have done before,” she said. Hauser said she does not officially have a teaching background, but is a professional who has worked with grad students in her field, videotaping dance. “I love kids!” she exclaimed, and volunteering with ESLC has given her the chance to work with them.
She works with four children this year at Frost Lake Elementary, and she continues to work with them through the school year, proving half-hour tutoring sessions.
“These are third graders who started school during the pandemic, and so there is a lot of catch-up to do,” Hauser said.
She sees kids learn to read, and then to comprehend what they read.
Hauser said each 30-minute session begins with three minutes of getting to know each other and establishing trust. “How are you? What did you have for breakfast?” is how the conversation might start out. ”Then we get into three pages of reading, and they are graded on their fluency. We spend the bulk of the time with the children doing up to five different games.”
Hauser said there are several different ways the tutor can interact with the child. “You might read a couple of sentences, and then the child repeats those sentences. You get the sounds and rhythms of the tones,” she said. “You might read together, or you can read and the child fills in the words you left out. Or you read a sentence, and the child reads the next sentence. Then we work on four to five minutes of comprehension.”
She said that as a tutor, she gets a chance to bring out other things to enhance what the student has learned.
“For me, one of the major benefits of what I like to do with my kids is to enhance their sense of self,” Hauser explained. “One little girl asked a question, and I told her how proud I was of her. She asked if she was really smart, and I told her that the smartest people in the world ask questions. Seeing her grow in confidence was so rewarding.”
Hauser said that being a mentor is really exciting for her. “Reading books to the kids I have learned so much from ESLC.”
She said there are workshops and monthly meetings on Zoom, with all tutors gathering with a speaker and then breaking into groups to find out what is happening in other schools. The tutors also have a three-day seminar in which they can plug in with others from all across the country. This is part of the Experience Corps, coming out of AARP. “I am really impressed with the constant learning experience,” Hauser said.
She said the most challenging part of the tutoring experience is that not all the kids are always entirely focused. “They have different learning styles.”
She recalled one little boy she worked with who had lots of problems at home, and his only stability was in class. “He sometimes acted out,” she said. She said that one day when he was having a tough time, he brought his lunch in and they started having a conversation about different foods they liked and didn’t like, and that calmed things down. “Some of the hardest things are the baggage they bring in, through no fault of their own,” Hauser said.
She said that the most rewarding part of the tutoring experience is when the kids feel so good about what they have done.
“One little girl, her eyes shining, said she had read a book all the way through by herself. It’s the realization they could do what they never imagined they could do.”
Hauser said that the other tutors she works with are often retired teachers, and she finds them to be a kind, optimistic and hopeful group of people.
She said the volunteer tutoring is a wonderful thing for people who are retired and have some time to be involved. “You do have to be creative and work at it, but that’s cool. It’s a wonderful program the way it is set up. You really feel like you can make a difference in someone’s life.”’
Anyone interested in volunteering can contact Amelia Wherland, outreach and communications coordinator at
amelia.wherland@eslcmn.org
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