"Reading" Students: What I've Learned from Them

As a volunteer, I was introduced to the "I Can Read" Program by a friend of mine during my junior year of college at SIUC. My friend had told me about the opportunity of tutoring youth in reading and the program’s constant need for extra help. As an English major, I quickly jumped at the suggestion, and started volunteering two days a week. Shortly into my senior year, I had gotten heavily involved with my chapter in the AmeriCorps program. Our chapter’s goals were to tutor and mentor at-risk youth throughout the Southern Illinois community. When I wasn’t at my assigned service site, I frequently made visits to the Eurma Hayes Center to volunteer. I enjoyed the structure of the program and developed a heart for the youth the program served. My chapter even had our last service project together for the year tutoring for the program for AmeriCorps week. It was one of the first times that the youth had seen so many volunteers during the program’s session.

After I graduated, I continued to volunteer with the "I Can Read" Program for the remainder of the school year. The program director, Ms. Margaret Nesbit, told me about the Eurma Hayes Center’s plans to introduce "I Can Read" as a summer program as well. I didn’t hesitate to sign on as a volunteer, as I knew that there would be a shortage of volunteers for the summer since most students would go home during the break. During the summer program’s first week, I was surprised to see several committed individuals volunteering as instructors and felt immediately inspired. As a recently-graduated volunteer having been a teacher’s aid for AmeriCorps in the past, I was assigned the 4th—6th grade youth as the reading group I would tutor.

In my group, there were 11 students and about 9 would show up each day during the session week. At first I was intimidated, having been surrounded by youth who were considered “at-risk” both academically and socially. It made me want to try my utmost best though, and I soon learned from the youth how to reach out to students who were so different from what I was used to. Many of the students come to the program with problems carried from home, church, or summer school, and the “I Can Read” Program was seen as a refuge for them. I didn’t want to just tutor them on how to develop better reading comprehension skills, I wanted to be there for them as a mentor as well. I would often stay after the session was over and talk with my students about life, their hobbies, their interests, and their plans for the future. I used their stories to develop class projects and activities for them to do outside of the reading assignment. Each week was a different reading unit, and my group explored global studies, poverty, race and ethnicities, science, the Spanish and French languages, African and Asian cultures, and nutrition through stories, pop culture encyclopedias, and poetry. The students wrote their autobiographies, put together job resumes and reflections, created collages about people who have influenced them, and composed a book of original poems about their environment. Each day with the youth was remarkable to witness as they continued to grow in different academic fields.

The "I Can Read" Program has become a staple in the Carbondale community. It’s a great conjunction with the area elementary and middle schools in developing reading and behavioral skills. The students are given opportunities in this program to be the best they can be through dedicated volunteers and individuals who patiently encourage them to do so. The program has grown increasingly in the amount of students from all ethnic and educational backgrounds that attend, and it is a necessity that teachers, youth advocates, city officials, and community leaders know how much of an asset "I Can Read" is to youth.