Volunteering: New Territory

Memphis is a youthful city - we ranked #9 on a Forbes list of "Future Cities" due to the percentage of population under age 14. The 2010 census found 26% of Memphis residents were under 18. If we can support and nurture these young people to develop essential skills, they have great potential to help turn the tide of some of the negative factors Memphis is dealing with. Unfortunately, though, the city faces a number of issues that affect children, and education is one of the big ones.

I have neither the historical understanding nor personal experience to attempt to explain the Shelby County School District to my non-Memphian readers. Let's just sum it up by saying that the school district has some problems, and there are places where children are really struggling due to a variety of factors. I've recently begun volunteering with a program for some kids who need help. 

To preserve the privacy of everyone involved, I'll call it Calvin School. This particular program is implemented by a non-profit organization in cooperation with Calvin (at least, that's my understanding so far!) I'm helping out with a reading program that uses curriculum structured to help students improve reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension. Not all the students at Calvin participate, just those who have been identified as needing the most help with reading. 

At first I was a little worried, since I haven't actually worked much with native English speakers - my background is more in English as a Second Language. All the students in this program except one are native English speakers. But as we went through the training materials, I realized that a lot of my ESL skills actually could be applicable. 

When I went to the school for the first time this week, my GPS sent me to a new part of the city I hadn't visited yet. I made some initial anthropological field notes, but I'll withhold them from publication until I've been able to observe in more detail. Also I didn't actually get to meet any of the kids yet! I did training last week, and they're out on Spring Break now. This gives me an extra week to brush up on my phonics skills!

Luckily I learned all about phonics when I was a kid. Now let's see if I can access those far recesses of my memory bank...ah ha! I knew the internet would help me :) If you scroll through that article, you'll see a chant I learned in elementary school about the sounds that letters make. I went a little something like this:

A block A block A A A

B beating heart, b- b- b-

C cracking nut, k- k- k-

D knocking on door, d- d- d-

and etc...

(full disclosure, that article was really long and boring, so I didn't read most of it. I hope it was saying it's in favor of reading!)