Skyline students are volunteering at Los Cerritos Elementary School to help improve the reading capabilities of struggling students. They’re able to do this collaboration through the Reading Partners, organizers of a program designed to place young students who struggle with English reading into one-on-one tutoring sessions with high school and college students.

“The Reading Partners Program is an opportunity,” Brian Jenney, Career services Aid said. “An opportunity for students to (…) mentor and tutor elementary students who are struggling.”

The collaboration with Reading Partners has been placing Skyline students into Los Cerritos classrooms since Spring of last year. The program places trained community volunteers into one-on-one sessions with a single elementary school student for hour-long lessons under supervision from a trained Reading Partners professional. Each session is designed to target the specific areas that students struggle with most when it comes to reading, but they are also tailored to the specific issues of each student.

Skyline faculty were able to do this after receiving a grant written by Skyline’s Lavinia Zanassi and Alex Jones through the President’s Innovation Fund. Multiple elementary schools in the area were contacted to ask which schools would like the assistance. Los Cerritos was the only one to respond. By connecting the community of students at Skyline College with the practices and vision of the Reading Partner organizers, Los Cerritos students and faculty have seen marked improvement. This has been true not only for the elementary students, but also the volunteer students from Skyline have found direction and purpose through their work.

“We made this knowing it would help the elementary students,” Zanassi said, “but now we see it’s helping both!”

Skyline volunteers participating through the program have discovered the areas that they wish to study, according to Zanassi. They have gone on to pursue a wide range of studies from neuroscience to speech pathology. By working so closely with struggling elementary school kids, students are forced to find aspects of the struggle that they find interesting or engaging. Looking for those interests have lead them to consider degrees and careers they wouldn’t have been involved with before.

“They love it,” Monyca Currier, Administration Assistant at Los Cerritos Elementary School said. “They have good times.”

Even the kids like to express how much they like the program. One third grader commented on just how cool it was to have a college kid come to help her with her reading.

“I get to read,” she said, “and then the tutor reads to me.”

That’s really what the program is about, establishing Skyline students as a conduit for scholastic success. They show five and six-year-olds the kind of people that can go to college. By giving younger students individualized attention from people in their community, focusing on their specific difficulties and needs, the young students begin to believe in themselves and feel proud of their accomplishments, all with a minimal effort from Skyline students.

“It doesn’t take up a lot of time,” Jenney said. “Like, an hour a week.”

That hour seems to go a long way. Reading Partners statistics show that after just one month of participating in the program, students often show 1.6 months worth of improvement. That time accumulates, to the point that many students begin to read at a level beyond the peers that once intimidated them. This effect snowballs out into other aspects of their learning experience. Kids become more confident and more willing to participate.

“Nobody wants to be that kid, you know?” Jenney said. “Once you start getting the hang of [reading], you just feel great. You get more confident, and that makes you more likely to do better.”

Skyline students who are interested in volunteering are encouraged to visit Lavinia Zanassi in Building 1, room 1215. The Reading Partners will also be on campus on February 11 presenting to classes and representing the program in the Career Center in Building 2.