Reading Partners one tutor. one child. infinite posibilities

People Who Volunteer

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• High School Students

• College Students

• Working Professionals

• Full Time Parents

• Retirees

High School Students:

Alyssa Andrade, senior at Presentation High School, finds the atmosphere at Reading Partners very conducive to working with kids.    "The one-on-one helps kids focus better than the group atmosphere in the classroom," she explains.  Alyssa is proud of how her student has grown in just one month.  "I can already see an improvement," she says.    When Alyssa describes working with her student, she notices the subtle ways they are building a relationship. "We got along better today than ever before," says Alyssa.  "Monicah was coloring her picture for a vocabulary word, and she asked me for help coloring it.  I realized that she trusted me to color on her picture."

One thing sophomore Kelly N. is excited about with Reading Partners is that "it's like having a great job.  I have a folder for my student, " she says. "I write things down and keep track of his progress."  When Kelly first got involved with Reading Partners, she said she did it for Community Involvement because she thought it would look good on her college transcripts.  "But now," she says, "it's part of my personal schedule.  It's something I actually enjoy doing.  It's not about college anymore; it's about helping young people in the community."

Joe Peifer and Gabe Mancini, freshmen from Bellarmine, carpool together to Reading Partners.  Tutoring, they say, seemed like an easy way to get community service hours, but they also say "it's a lot of fun."  Gabe tutors Jacob and calls tutoring "hanging out with Jacob time."  "He's funny," says Gabe, "I like to tease him. He feels like my little brother."  

Joe says that tutoring has brought back memories about being in elementary school and how hard it was to learn to read.  He and his student Casey have a lot in common and talk about skateboarding and playing the guitar. Describing their relationship he says, "We’re talking about something and then we’re talking about something totally different like guitar.  It’s great!"

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College Students:

Austin Ashcraft, an undergraduate philosophy major, says he was drawn to Reading Partners because "it's motivating to know that this program gets such great results."

Lena Hoffman, a graduate student at Cal in public policy with an emphasis on education and youth policy, likes that coming to tutoring helps her not only to implement real teaching ideas but to take a break from the policies and theories in her graduate work.  "I like it when Bomani surprises me--like when he perfectly pronounces a hard word without hesitating," Lena says, "or when we're doing a worksheet and Lillibeth comes up with some profound answer."  For Lena, these are the moments that are most rewarding.

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Working Professionals:

Michael Stamos, manager at SUN Microsystems and father of two school-aged children, finds time in his schedule to tutor fourth grader Lawrence every week.  On a recent fishing trip, his friends were musing about how they could start a business to change the world.  Michael razzed them that once they got back home to their wives and kids, they'd never get around to doing it.  Instead, he told them, they should do something that really could make a difference in a child's life right now.  For Michael, Reading Partners is that answer.

Week after week, Lawrence struggled with reading.  But Michael wasn't daunted.  He believed in Lawrence and just kept showing up week after week until one day, seemingly out of the blue, Lawrence started taking off with reading. Michael says, "It's like a light switched on with him."

For Patty Davis, a long-time community volunteer, Reading Partners offers the perfect way to give back during her lunch hour.  "I can show up -- no prep work, no homework -- and it's so easy to step in."  She finds it very rewarding to work with one student throughout the year, and while she doesn't currently have children of her own, she hopes she will someday.  In the meantime, Patty loves interacting with her student, Jorge, and he looks forward to seeing him each week.

We spotted Jorge one day after tutoring.  He was walking back to class with his friends holding a wrapped holiday gift from Patty. With his friends prodding him to open it immediately, Jorge stopped in the middle of the hallway to satisfy their excitement.  The next thing you heard was the clamor of three third-grade boys screeching, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid!  Wow!  Cool!"

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Full-Time Parents:

Susan Tjoflat has an infant and a toddler and has been tutoring at Reading Partners since 2007.  "Coming to Reading Partners is a way to have my own time away from my family," she says. "I love reading, so this was a great fit for me."

When Isabelle Reddy's youngest child started school full time, she had more time on her hands and wanted to work with children.  She was attracted to Reading Partners because she believes Reading Partners gives kids an extra boost early in their development.  Isabelle describes working with her student, Kimberly: "We were going over compound words one day and she was really getting it.  Her eyes lit up.  A couple of weeks later, she was reading and stopped at a word and said, 'That's a compound word.'"

"Wow!" thought Isabelle. "She really gets it!"  Little moments like these give Isabelle all the inspiration she needs to keep coming back.

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Retirees:

Barbara Brennan, retired scientist, likes Reading Partners because it's very satisfying, but secondly, and equally as important, it fits into her lifestyle.  She explains, "After I retired there were so many people who wanted me to get involved, but I didn't want something to take up all my time."  Reading Partners, she says, makes it easy to volunteer.  When she has  a vacation planned, her Site Director finds a substitute tutor.  Barbara says that for a lot of her friends who volunteer, finding a substitute is the bane of their existence.  For Barbara to feel good about what she's doing and have flexibility, "it's a win-win."

When Eileen Wampole was a children's librarian, she often didn't have the chance to work one-on-one with children.  Now that she's getting the chance as a tutor with Reading Partners, she loves the challenge it offers.  "It keeps you on your toes," she says.  Eileen explains that, rather than being a chore, tutoring is exciting because it allows her to learn about how her student's mind works, what's going on in his life, how he's changing, and then help him find new ways to enjoy learning.  "I'm glad I've had the opportunity to do this," she affirms.  "It's really interesting."

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