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How to Bolster Budding Language Skills

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Hire a tutor

When poor attitude or reluctance to read threatens to nip your kindergarten or first-grade student's reading skills in the bud, consider a reading-trained, senior-aged tutor. Senior tutoring is tutoring with a golden edge because:

  1. Most tutors are retired and have available time.

  2. They provide the nurturing grandparent factor.

  3. They have stricter standards of behavior and expect the child to act accordingly.

  4. They are motivated by the experience of working one-on-one with young students.

  5. They become an advocate for the child.

  6. Many senior-tutoring programs are free of charge.
It works! An annual survey by the Older Adult Service and Information System (OASIS) of their twenty-one city, nationwide tutoring program as well as a three-year study of senior-tutored first graders in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that students in such programs gained in the following ways:

  1. Improved attitudes toward reading and language arts

  2. Increased class participation

  3. Greater willingness to read aloud

  4. Heightened self-esteem

  5. Longer attention span

  6. Better verbal skills

  7. More completed homework assignments

  8. Higher test scores

  9. Improved attendance

  10. Kids learned to like books
Many senior-tutoring programs are not only free of charge, but they are also personal and convenient. OASIS tutors provide one-to-one, forty-five minute sessions once weekly in the student's school. Investigate intergenerational tutoring programs at your local school, faith-based organization.

More on: Cognitive and Psychological Development

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From Teacher Says by Evelyn Porreca Vuko. Copyright © 2004. Used by arrangement with Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

If you'd like to buy this book, visit amazon.com or click on the book cover.

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