By Jan Willms
There is not an interest in the East Side Learning Center (ESLC) being the best-kept secret anymore.
This belief was recently shared by Karmit Bulman, the new director of the center, located at 290 Arundel St. in St. Paul.
Since 2001, ESLC volunteers have been tutoring children K-3rd grade in reading. In 1998, as part of a long-range effort to revitalize the East Side of Saint Paul, the East Side Neighborhood Development Company approached the School Sister of Notre Dame (SSND) to supplement the educational needs of East side resident children. “They were concerned about poverty on the East Side,” Bulman said. “The first director was a Sister, who eventually moved on. There have been a few directors before me.”
She said the neighborhood organizations wanted a very intentional program to address the literacy rate of the children living in poverty in East St. Paul. In 2001, the SSND partnered with St. Paul civic and educational leaders to develop the one-on-one literacy tutoring for first through third grade children who were reading below grade level. Later, they expanded to include kindergarten. Their service area includes the Frogtown, Midway and Como neighborhoods.
According to Bulman, volunteers tutor the children four hours a week in three schools: St. Paul Music Academy, Frost Lake Elementary and East African Elementary Magnet School.
“We have after school tutoring virtually four days a week, again one-on-one,” Bulman said. “We also have a summer program that takes place here onsite.”
ESLC added a new pre-school tutoring program for children ages 3-5 in November 2024.
“Our volunteers start in September with a lot of intensive training, both for new and returning volunteers,” Bulman said. “Some work during the school year and some in the summer. We have volunteers who work year-round, also.”
Bulman said ESLC has 10,000 tutoring sessions per year and serves just under 200 children. “Our outcomes are pretty remarkable in social-emotional learning and reading fluently, which are our goals,” she said. Bulman noted that some children arrive just learning to do letter recognition.
“Our program focuses on fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and phonics,” Bulman stated. “We focus on getting the child to read the way he or she speaks.”
She said the tutoring complements what the teachers are doing in the classroom. “They just don’t have the time to do the one-on-one tutoring,” she explained.
Bulman said that although the program has volunteers of all ages, most of them are over 50. “We work with Experience Corps, that is a part of AARP,” she said. “We look for that relationship between an older adult and a child. Many children really struggle with reading, and the one-on-one relationship makes all the difference.”
Each child tutored has a half hour of instruction. Bulman said she is learning how to tutor and fit all the pieces into a structured half-hour session. “We know what to do, and there is data and evidence behind how we teach,” Bulman said. “That half hour goes very quickly, and there are no minutes wasted at all.
“The beauty of our program is that there is not a requirement that our volunteers be teachers,” said Bulman. “They need to be good with kids, reputable, honest, patient and follow the structure of the program. For anybody who cares about making a difference, it is an absolutely rewarding experience.”
Bulman emphasized the importance of reading. “Once a child learns how to read, that child can do anything.”
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