New tutoring program lends helping
hand to local students
By Megan R. Harrell
Star Staff
mharrell@starhq.com
Diana Reid was looking for a Community
Service project and landed on an after school tutoring program
for any student in the Carter County or Elizabethton City
School System. As a substitute teacher for city schools and
a former tutor, Reid saw the need to meet children where they
are on their quest for knowledge.
A combination of substitute and retired teachers
will be working with Reid to kick start the tutoring program.
The first tutoring session will be held Tuesday, April 2,
at the Redeemer Lutheran Church, 234 W. First St. The cost
of the program is $2 per lesson. Classes will be Monday through
Friday beginning at 3 p.m. and will run until 5:50 p.m. There
will also be a summer session that will run Monday through
Friday starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 10:50 a.m.
The tutoring classes will be set up in small
groups of six to eight and will concentrate on a variety of
subject matter including math, reading, spelling and social
studies. Study and organization habits will also be taught
during the 50-minute tutoring sessions.
The tutoring program is designed to reinforce
what students are learning in the classroom at their regular
schools. It will help students who are struggling in daily
classroom activities or will assist those who want to get
ahead of the game. The tutoring will begin concentrating mainly
on grades K-5, but Reid hopes to move into tutoring high school
students for preparation of the Gateway exams. She is also
looking into the possibility of establishing a homework hotline
in the future so students may call in for help if they run
into difficulties with their work.
Reid believes there are a number of reasons why
the tutoring program is needed in this day and age. She noted
the fact that parents are becoming less and less able to help
their children at home because of the increasing difficulty
level for students at younger ages. "It is not that some parents
do not want to help their children, but that they do not know
how to," Reid said. "Parents are loosing their ability to
tutor their children at younger and younger ages, because
they work harder at earlier ages."
Reid stated the educational structure in many
of the local schools leave little time to concentrate on an
area if only one student has a problem with it. The tutoring
sessions will reinforce the spelling words and math problems
that each student is working on in his or her own classroom
and additional subject matter will not be introduced. "What
good does it do to teach them other things if they need to
know this certain thing by Friday?" Reid said.
Although the tutoring program is looking to assist
students who are struggling in the mainstreamed classroom,
the tutoring sessions are not geared toward children who have
diagnosed learning disabilities. "I began seeing the need
for extra help in the classroom," Reid said. "It is not big,
huge problems that we are dealing with. It is just the little
ones that we can solve such as students needed material to
be presented in different ways."
Local businesses have supported Reid and her
colleagues on their educational endeavor. Big Johns donated
storage shelves to help the program get under way, while Academy
Mobile Homes donated a fax machine and other start up materials.
Reid stated that she still needs copy paper and reading books.
Individuals interested in making donations may reach Reid
at 542-4991.
Registration for the tutoring program begins
today, from 3:20 to 5 p.m. at the Redeemer Lutheran Church,
234 W. First St. Parents and their children can register tomorrow
from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, and Monday, April 1, from 12 noon
to 3 p.m. at the same location.
Reid's experience with tutoring in the past has
taught her just how much the children benefit from one on
one attention. "The kids are so appreciative and understand
that this is going to help them," Reid said. "It helps to
understand the classroom situation and to know exactly what
they are going through in there."
