Vol. 38, No. 18

4-20-2004
By: Randy Gammage

Students learn by tutoring in literacy partnerships

Literacy partnerships involving Ohio State and Columbus Public Schools are enhancing the learning process for P-12 and OSU students alike.

Ongoing literacy partnerships with Medary and Trevitt elementary schools send first-year OSU students enrolled in a service-learning course (English 110W) out to the schools each week throughout the school year for one-to-one tutoring sessions. The idea is to support what the Columbus teachers are already doing, not to give them directives, said Mindy Wright, writing workshop coordinator with the Department of English.

“We work with great teachers in the Columbus schools,” Wright said. “One of the ways Ohio State can help improve P-12 education is by providing bodies for one-on-one tutoring. This gives those first-graders an additional 45 minutes of instruction that the teachers just don’t have the time to provide.”

One group of Ohio State students visits Medary Elementary School on Wednesday mornings to work with small groups of first-graders on writing assignments. The program builds on a Literacy Partnership begun in autumn 1999, which was funded by a Campus Collaborative seed grant.
Another group of university students visits Trevitt Elementary School on Wednesday afternoons to work with small groups of first- graders on literacy assignments in an after-school setting. The program builds on the Trevitt/OSU Literacy Partnership of autumn 1999, which was funded by a President’s Council on Outreach and Engagement seed grant.

At each site, OSU students work with CPS students under the supervision of university faculty and graduate students, and CPS teachers.

Through these partnerships, elementary school students receive one-on-one, or one-on-two tutoring with reading and writing skills. Wright said there are three primary goals:

• To support reading and writing instruction being done in the elementary classroom in ways that best fit each school;

• To contribute to the goal of raising fourth grade proficiency test scores; and

• To encourage elementary school students to get excited about learning, and possibly about going to college in the future.

The partnerships are achieving results. Thirteen students at Medary have progressed to the point where they are no longer working with tutors.

“That is a sign of success because those 13 students started the year as the lower readers in their class,” Wright said. Students identified by their teachers as needing special instruction join the tutoring sessions.

Medary and Trevitt students have improved reading and writing skills, as measured in the classroom and on proficiency tests, she said, as well as improved their self confidence about school by working with college student role models.

The service learning opportunity also has enhanced the educational process for Ohio State students, Wright said. They learn about literacy skills in a hands-on environment, with writing and reading activities that have real world purposes. OSU students learn more about the educational system and its strengths and challenges.

The focus of the service-learning course is on literacy and how it changes in different contexts. It involves a research investigation project based on their tutoring experience and classroom discussions. Past topics have included proficiency testing, how teachers affect student learning, and the role of tutors.

“We introduce them to research methods they would not have used in high school, such as the Internet, interviews and observation research,” Wright said. “It gets them out of the classroom and gives them a real purpose for their work as they experience the impact they have on the students they tutor.”

For details, contact Wright at wright.7@osu.edu.

High school connection

Wright has teamed with Beverly Moss, director of the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing (CSTW), and Kay Halasek, coordinator of CSTW’s Writing Center, to form a literacy partnership with Linden McKinley High School teachers. The collaboration is designed to encourage communication about teaching and assessing writing between English teachers at Linden McKinley and first-year writing instructors at OSU through joint workshops on holistic assessment, Wright said. In addition, consultants in CSTW’s outreach program will conduct a yearlong series of workshops on writing essay exams for Linden McKinley students.

The goal is to work closely with the students and teachers at Linden McKinley to establish an ongoing relationship. In the process, Wright said faculty become more familiar with the backgrounds students are coming from, and high school teachers learn more about where their students may be heading.

“I believe one of the long-term effects of this partnership is that, if students feel they are making a connection with Ohio State, then they will be more likely to enroll at OSU in the future,” Wright said.

The project is an extension of the Early English Composition Assessment Program designed to extend the discussion of writing and writing assessment across different populations of Ohio 11th-graders, 11th-grade teachers and OSU teachers.

For details, contact Moss at moss.1@osu.edu, or Halasek at halasek.1@osu.edu.

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