Cross-Age Literacy

Like most urban schools in Chicago, the elementary schools we partnered with suffered from overcrowding and underfunding. Some classes had over thirty students in them who were reading at all different levels, and many of the classes contained both bilingual and special education students. Because one teacher alone could not tackle all of the diverse needs in these classrooms, our students provided the additional support necessary to ensure that the first graders were making progress in reading. Once a month, the first graders had an opportunity to work one-on-one with an older mentor who could guide their reading and provide focused instruction on a reading strategy such as summarizing or predicting.