Reading Buddies Program

Reading Buddies share in the progress made by 1st grade Reading Recovery students
The goal of the Reading Recovery program is to dramatically reduce the number of first-grade students who have extreme difficulty learning to read and write and to reduce the cost of these learners to educational systems. 

Reading Recovery is a highly effective short-term intervention of one-to-one tutoring for low-achieving first grade students.  Individual students receive a half-hour lesson each school day for 12 to 20 weeks with a specially trained Reading Recovery teacher. 

This volunteering tradition began 14 years ago between the 1^st grade Reading Recovery program and our Prime Time Reading Buddy volunteers.  Due to the wonderful response we received from our community members, that would be you……..we now have volunteers listening to 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd grade children read.  Last year there were 19 Prime Time (55 and better) Reading Buddies.  This school year we have 69 Prime Time Reading Buddies and an additional 41 volunteers that are <55 for a total of 110.  Thanks to our volunteers we are helping hundreds of our elementary children!   

Carol Watson, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader, reports that “the average gain in reading attained by our students is Text Level 11. Many of our striving readers enter the program at Text Levels 0 or Text Level 1. The end of year 1st graders goal for proficiency is Text Level 16.  Your literacy support is a valuable component in achieving this goal.

Reading Buddies support students by emphasizing what makes sense in thinking about the story and using what students know of spoken language to take words apart efficiently and successfully problem-solve new words in text. Enjoyment and success are goals and outcomes in reading with students.

Our teaching staff value your work and our students love learning to read with you!”

In keeping with our tradition of growing our volunteer program, our goal is to recruit enough volunteers so that EVERY CHILD struggling with reading has the opportunity to practice their reading skills with a caring adult every week.  We believe this is achievable.  We challenge you to talk with your neighbors, co-workers, friends and family to encourage them to help our community children.  Helping our children gives them the opportunity to be successful in school.  Successful children help to build a better community.

Are you up to the challenge?  Let’s see how many new Reading Buddy volunteers we can recruit.  Our children need our help now!

More on Text Levels………

Not all children in the same grade read on the same level or even read at their own grade level.  So why make all children read the same book?

Studies show the best way to teach kids to read is to provide them with books that are at their reading level.  Students can build their fluency and comprehension skills when they read books that are on their target level, allowing them to concentrate on comprehension instead of struggling in decoding unknown words. 

The Waterloo School District uses the “Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2) to access students three times a year.   There are different levels of proficiency at the different times of the year. 

The next time you are listening to children read, look at the outside back cover of the book they are reading to see what “level” your child is reading at.  Thanks for the time you spend helping our children achieve their reading goals.  

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In 1999 the Reading Buddies program was established to assist first grade students in the Title 1 Reading Recovery Program.  Volunteers work twice a week with indentified students for approximately 15 minutes per session at all elementary schools (except Kingsley and Orange Elementary).

During these intensive literary sessions volunteers:
 - Listen to student read
 - Practice writing
 - Assist with word study
 - Help with assembling a cut-up sentence from the student’s story
 - Assist with speech and language development in ways that reinforce teacher’s goals
 - Activities are conducted in the spirit of making reading interesting and enjoyable for the student

We are also recruiting volunteers from the Bosnian and Latino communities so that the children that are learning English and reading at the same time can get special attention from someone that speaks their native language. This is a wonderful opportunity to help our children be successful in school. If you have one free hour a week, please consider volunteering for this very rewarding experience.

If you would like to be a Reading Buddy or for more information, please call Julie Ehlers at 433-2026 or email her at ehlersj@waterlooschools.org.