Tutors hit the books with District 63 students

A program that started six years ago to lobby senior citizens to support a school tax referendum has blossomed into a productive and popular tutoring partnership.

More than two dozen volunteers – mostly senior citizens – spent 750 hours in the 2010-2011 school year tutoring first- and second-graders at Apollo, Nelson, Twain and Washington schools in East Maine Elementary District 63, according to a presentation at the District 63 school board meeting.

The intergenerational “Make Difference” volunteer program started in 2005, and pairs senior citizens to work with kindergarten students, said Judy Masur, who has coordinated the effort since 2009.

The program offera volunteers a way to come into the schools and work directly with students, which provides volunteers with a sense of productivity, satisfaction and well-being while improving students’ reading skills and cutting down on absenteeism.

“Many of the students in the tutoring program have been absent a lot,” Masur said. “When they get involved with a tutor, they come to school so they can see them.”

In some ways, the tutors and their students become like extended family to one another, Masur said, as many of the children and the community members who volunteer live far away from their own extended families.

The program has changed quite a bit since its inception. In 2005, when the district was trying to pass a tax referendum, it brought seniors into the schools to see for themselves how the schools were doing. At the time they worked with three kindergarten students for 20 minutes each week, using the same lesson plan for each child. As the district’s curriculum changed, the format changed to each tutor working with two first- or second-graders for 30 minutes each, using individualized lesson plans.

Volunteers use a lesson plan Masur designed to work with teachers and select appropriate materials for each of the students they work with, reading books and playing games like bingo and “go fish,” using cards with words children need to practice with, Masur said. After the lesson, both Masur and the teachers get a report on how it went.

“Their communication with teachers is having a huge benefit” said Charlene Cobb, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.

Last year, 14 out of 26 volunteers came from the “Maine Streamers,” a Maine Township senior citizens group. The others mostly were recruited by people who already volunteered, or came from a church that meets at Apollo School, Masur said. Twenty-five of the 26 are women, she said, although she has had inquiries from two men already about starting to tutor next year.

Ten of the 26 tutors who were active last year were among the original group of tutors in 2005.

“We mostly lose tutors because of illness,” Masur said.