Since I was an elementary school student, I wanted to be a teacher. In particular, my fifth grade teacher solidified my decision when she took the time to create lessons beyond the textbook. Then in eighth grade, my history teacher made history come alive by decorating and acting out various time periods. Not only did I want to be that teacher who would teach beyond the textbook but wanted to show my students how much I cared for each and every one.

I have been teaching for several years now and noticed not all students have access to families to help with homework, because the students are in an aftercare program. The aftercare program offered homework time, not for helping students but to allow them time to do their homework,. As I was analyzing test scores and other data points, I noticed some of these students were failing in literacy but sitting in aftercare late into the evening. These same students didn’t have access to transportation or the financial means to have a tutor for literacy help. One day it clicked I could get a few teachers to stay after school with a literacy intervention program to help these students. My goal was to not just boost reading scores for our school, but to boost confidence in these students and teach them to love reading and to become lifelong learners.

Through Mentors, I was able to create a tutor program with another teacher. We went to a literacy conference to learn the cutting edge reading strategies and began right away with these strategies. The students we worked with were several reading levels below grade level for first grade, barely able to read a sentence without making a decoding mistake. By the end of the school year, these students were on-grade level, not just reading and decoding the words but increasing their comprehension and self-confidence.

The ripple effect of early intervention to enhance reading skills and comprehension cannot be overstated. Being able to maximize a student’s after-school time with a program that supersedes their family’s economic challenges and time constraints is paramount to that student’s future success and self-sufficiency. Knowing how our strategy had such a positive impact, I willingly share it with other teachers.