|
|
| Book Buddies: a Model Community Reading Tutorial Program |
By Marcia Invernizzi
Book Buddies home page (University of Virginia)
|
 Marcia Invernizzi is an Associate Professor of Reading Education at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, where she is also Director of the McGuffey Reading Center. Professor Invernizzi is the co-founder of Book Buddies, which received the 1997 Virginia State Reading Association's Literacy Award for community service. She enjoys organic gardening and spending time with her family.
|
|
Imagine for a moment how different your life might be if you couldn't read at all, or did not read well. Think how it would affect just a few aspects of your life:- Your employment options and income.
- Your ability to find and process information about your hometown and the world; and to participate as a citizen in your community and nation.
- The difficulty you might have reading leases, contracts, financial documents and all the print we must negotiate in our lives to make sound survival decisions.
- The accessibility of information about history, art, music, or any other subject that may interest you.
- The enjoyment of literature and reading to your children and grandchildren.
|
| The Challenge: The Impact of Illiteracy on a Nation and its Citizens |
Not only does the ability to read have a strong impact on individual lives, it is a factor in judging a nation's productivity and overall global competitiveness. While the overall literacy rate of American adults is comparable to other industrialized nations, the percentage of American adults falling into the lowest literacy level is higher than comparable figures for nearly every other developed nation.
"There is good reason to believe that such low-level literacy is an impairment to our economic growth and competitive position," Paul E. Barton of the Educational Testing Service wrote in a USA Today article.
Illiteracy and low-literacy skills have profound social implications. Low literacy is strongly related to unemployment, poverty, and crime. About 43% of those with the lowest literacy skills live in poverty, and 70% of the prison population falls into the two lowest levels of reading proficiency, according to the 1998 National Institute for Literacy Fact Sheet.
In 1998, nearly four in 10 children in the fourth grade (around 10 years old) in the United States failed to achieve even partial mastery of the reading skills needed for school success. In our highest-poverty schools, nearly seven in 10 fourth-graders fail to read at this Basic level, says the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (1999). |
| The Response: Book Buddies |
| Let's look at how one community successfully responded to this challenge, with a program that is being replicated across America. Book Buddies is a one-on-one community volunteer tutorial program that functions as an integral part of the Charlottesville City School's long-range plan for promoting the literacy development of young children. |
 |
|
This collaborative program combines the concern and expertise of parents, volunteers, Charlottesville City Schools, the University of Virginia's McGuffey Reading Center, and the citizens of Charlottesville, Virginia. The collective experience has been brought together in an online workshop, available through the University of Virginia's TEMPO Reading Outreach, that will help communities start their own Book Buddies programs.
Unique Features of Book Buddies
The Book Buddies program has carefully designed features that make it work for the children being served, their parents, their schools, and the volunteers. Some of these features are:- A volunteer recruiter solicits the help of community members to tutor children in the first and second grade.
- Volunteers come from all walks of life; ages range from 18-75. In recent years, University of Virginia Federal Work Study students have joined the ranks of tutors with America Reads funding.
- Tutors receive training twice a year in research-based methods by Book Buddies coordinators, most of whom are reading specialists.
- The tutors receive ongoing support from the coordinators by writing lesson plans and providing feedback and additional training.
- Each coordinator supervises 15 volunteer tutors and the children they tutor.
- Tutors provide two 45-minute tutoring sessions to their tutee each week.
|
| Book Buddies: A Success Story for All Involved |
In 2000-2001, the ninth year of the program in Charlottesville City Schools, 157 community volunteers participated. A full 43% of these community volunteers had two or more years of tutoring experience prior to the 2000-2001 school year. On average, 96% of the tutors volunteered for the entire school year. In recent years, University of Virginia Federal Work Study students serve as tutors and receive compensation through America Reads funding.
In 2003 the Book Buddies program was running at five of the six elementary schools in Charlottesville (all but Johnson). For 2003, there were 125 tutor/student pairs. Ninety-six tutors returned and of those 66 (69%) have tutored for at least three years. They are continuing to use America Reads students in the program. |
 |
|
The first and second graders served by the program continue to make measurable gains in their reading ability that places them firmly on the path to literacy and school success. And the bonds between tutors and children often go beyond the joy of learning together.
The successful collaboration of parents, students, school and university personnel and the community has produced a program that serves as a model for other communities willing to make the commitment to literacy for all children.
For further research on the proven success of the Book Buddies program, and to find out about Book Buddies in the Bronx, visit the Book Buddies home page listed at the end of this lesson. |
|
| Additional Resources |
Tutoring Programs for Struggling Readers: The America Reads Challenge, Lesley Mandel Morrow (editor), Deborah Gee Woo (editor) (November 2000), Guilford Press
Book Buddies: Guidelines for Volunteer Tutors of Emergent and Early Readers, Francine R. Johnston, Marcia Invernizzi, and Connie Juel (April 1998), Guilford Press
Book Buddies: An interactive approach training manual, Fowler, M. C. and Lindemann, L. (2000), University of Virginia Bookstore.
Book Buddies: A Community Volunteer Tutorial, Invernizzi, M. (2000), C. Rasco and L. Morrow (Editors) |
Share this Lesson
Email the Author
|
