Outcomes for Students
I have one student, a reading teacher begins, he's a bright-eye child in the second grade. When I tested him at the beginning of the year, he mastered the primer level but none of the basic first-grade material. I matched him with one of our RSVP volunteers who spent a lot of time teaching him about the world. They would take books and find the places they were about on the globe and talk about what it might be like in those places. They bonded so well. And now, after a year, he's moved up two-and-a-half grade levels. He's reading third and fourth grade words. He has absolutely blossomed.
Senior volunteer tutors do not take the place of teachers or parents. They do allow children extra time to practice reading, writing, and talking, giving each child individual attention and caring. Seniors' unique experiences, storytelling, and calm demeanor can captivate children, and their unconditional friendship creates a space where children feel learning is safe, fun, and rewarding.
Four programs participating in this study had performance-related goals, which are detailed in their Five Element Plans. In brief, those four programs' goals are:
1. Students' reading scores will increase by 20% (Atlantic County RSVP)
2. 80% of students served will show 1/2 to 1 grade-level increase in skills assessed (Nashville RSVP)
3. 20% of students served will improve reading skills in particular areas, and read at grade level, enabling them to move to the next grade (RSVP of Cape May County)
4. Half of the children served will gain in reading abilities to rise to the mean or average of their class (Vancouver FGP)
The fifth program, Monmouth County RSVP, focuses primarily on reading and literacy enrichment, and its goals are geared toward general objectives and outcomes such as instilling a love of reading in children and providing classrooms in need with access to quality books.
Of the four programs with performance-related outcomes, two conducted assessments of students working with senior tutors. The Nashville RSVP developed an assessment that volunteers administered, and the Vancouver FGP relied on curriculum assessments used by teachers in reading classrooms where volunteers were placed to determine students' improvement. The other two programs did not specifically assess students' reading skills and performance.
In the two programs that conducted assessments, students working with RSVP or FGP volunteers improved at least one to two grade levels in reading. By the end of the year, those students were reading at or slightly above the level of their peers. In other words, a second-grader who began the school year reading first-grade material (and working with concepts and skills typically taught in the first grade) finished the year reading the same material as his peers and was ready to move into third grade. Reports also indicated that students improved in skills such as letter recognition, letter-sound correspondence, sight-word recognition, printing, writing, and comprehension.
There are several important things to take away from these findings. These two programs (e.g., the schools participating in the study) have distinct characteristics: a) seniors work closely with reading specialists who help structure tutoring sessions and guide tutors' activities; b) volunteer tutoring-from seniors as well as others-is integrated into students' year-long reading intervention program; and c) students work with either a senior or other volunteer tutor several times during the week, in addition to receiving instruction from the reading teacher. These characteristics are what enable tutoring sessions to be structured, students assessed, and thus outcomes reliably reported.
The other two programs, which have volunteers stationed in regular classrooms, may contribute to improvements in student performance, but they did not conduct systematic assessments of students served. These seniors' time in classrooms tends to be less structured and more responsive to the entire classroom's needs. One day, a senior might read to a small group of students, and the next help one or two students complete an in-class writing assignment. Volunteers' time with students is less likely to be discrete sessions. Assessment of students occurs in the normal course of instruction, and seniors' impact is understood by noting students' overall performance, e.g., grades in particular subjects or promotion to the next grade. It may be that the impact of such volunteer work cannot be accurately assessed. Invernizzi, Rosemary, Juel, and Richard (1997) suggest as much. "Despite the good will and effort of volunteers, their relatively unsupervised tutoring [does not appear] to yield as significant gains as those obtained by trained paraprofessionals." Yet, they found that nonprofessional volunteers could be effective "if trained and supported by certified teachers knowledgeable about how children learn to read. . . . The key to these successful volunteer efforts is likely to be the training and close supervision given to tutors" Programs that provide training and supervision also structure volunteers' activities to address skills and concepts in ways can be assessed; those classrooms naturally have the ability and resources to conduct such assessments (and thus show volunteers' impact on students). The loose structure of volunteers in regular classrooms engaged in a variety of activities prevents programs and teachers from determining seniors' impact on student learning.
Perhaps more significant than these performance-related outcomes are the attitudinal and behavior impacts teachers, volunteers, and coordinators report. All five programs report that students working with senior volunteers, regardless of the goals or structure of tutoring/reading sessions, show increases in:
self-confidence
self-esteem
participation in large groups
motivation and interest in reading
self-direction in reading
attention or focus to reading-related activities
Some teachers note that these students seem to improve their attendance, and one principal feels that the senior tutors lent significantly to lowering the number of discipline problems during the year. "Kids want someone to set limits for them, even when they're in trouble," says Dr. Herbert Frederick, principal of Glenwood Avenue School in Wildwood, New Jersey. "The seniors help do that. They give the kids a personal connection that they value. I can say 'What's your grandpal going to say when she hears you've been doing this?' And they really respond to that."
Teachers and coordinators identify these attitudinal and behavioral impacts as some of the most important outcomes of seniors' service, but none of the programs assessed these aspects of volunteers' work. While a teacher or volunteer could provide an anecdote illustrating compelling changes in a student's self-confidence or motivation, there were no structured, program-wide, or even station-specific evaluations of these elements of students' literacy development. However, teachers, principals, and districts continue to value and support NSSC programs even when those outcomes are not systematically observed or reported.
Assessment tools that gauge students' attitudes about reading exist and could be adapted to help identify changes in students served by senior tutors. Coordinators do not seem to be aware of these tools, and if teachers are, they may not consider them in relation to volunteer tutoring. Coordinators also perceive that funders do not value changes in students' attitudes or consider them valid indicators of a program's impact. If this perception is correct, it is not only counter to what educators-at both building and district levels-believe, it is at odds with research in reading and literacy development.
Motivation, interest, and self-confidence are crucial to emerging and early readers' success. Indeed, those attitudes and self-concepts underpin much of the improvement of students' skills and knowledge shown on assessments; and, in a continuous positive feedback loop, students who perform well (and who receive positive feedback about that), feel more self-confident, continue to be interested in reading, and are thus motivated to learn new skills. A senior volunteer plays an important role in this positive feedback loop of student self-confidence and performance. Assessing those elements would help all participants in FGP and RSVP programs better understand the role and impact of seniors in children's reading and educational experiences and, thus, design more effective programs. Equally important, funders and policymakers would gain a fuller understanding of the impact of their dollars and initiatives.
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