Tutors help Kennedy students learn reading, math

by Cori Hilsgen

news@thenewsleaders.com

Are you interested in helping children become better students in the subjects of math and reading?

If so, you might be interested in becoming a Minnesota Reading and Math Corps tutor for the St. Cloud School District.

At the beginning of the school year, regional program manager Christine Bedell said 37 tutors had been hired and trained – 31 for reading and 6 for math.

Kennedy Community School had one math and three reading tutors. Bedell said Kennedy still had three reading and one math positions to fill.

At that time there were still 19 positions to fill for the St. Cloud School District – 11 reading and eight math.

Two people who are tutors placed at Kennedy this year include Marti Bundi and Joe Holden.

This is the second year both are returning tutors for the Minnesota Reading and Math Corps programs.

Bundi has been a reading tutor since November 2014, working only at the Kennedy site.

“I have really enjoyed the experience from the staff who are super nice and helpful to the kids who are so cute, smart and funny,” Bundi said.

Last year Bundi worked with about 28-29 students in two classes. She is a pre-kindergarten student tutor and works with 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds, working part-time about 22 hours each week.

As a tutor, Bundi helps the lead teacher with letters, sounds, rhyming, alliteration, picture recognition and other skills which she feels are beneficial to the children.

“She is the expert and I am happy to fill in the blanks and assist,” Bundi said.

Bundi is a Cathedral High School graduate and a retired federal employee who worked for 38 years at the Veterans Administration in St. Cloud. She is married and has two children.

“I have learned we all have so much to share, so much help we can give others,” Bundi said. “While this particular service never really occurred to me as a first step, I’m very happy I’m able to work with the kids to get them started in their reading success. If we can give them this extra help before third grade, they will be life-long successful readers and students. They will feel good about themselves and hopefully take that positive outlook as far as they want to go in their lives. Thanks to Reading Corps, I am part of that success.”

Holden is at the beginning of his career after earning a degree in mathematics from the University of Minnesota-Morris.

While tutoring, he decided to pursue a career as a mathematics professor.

Holden applied September 2014 and has worked at Kennedy since he started with the program. As a math tutor, it’s his responsibility to assist and help students who struggle with learning math.

Math Corps tutors meet with students during a regular school day for 30 minutes at a time.

“In these sessions with students, tutors deliver lessons that cover conceptual understanding of a subject, computational procedures involving a set of problems from a certain subject and applications in the form of word problems, as well as fluency in solving problems,” Holden said. “A tutor must insure a struggling student grasps the subject matter in each of these areas.”

Minnesota Math Corps tutors work with students from fourth to eighth grade. Their curriculum contains subject matter that includes subjects such as single-digit operations and multi-digit operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and applying those operations to whole numbers, fractions, decimals and percentages. It also works with converting between fractions, decimals, percentages and using operations on positive and negative numbers.

“The subject matter is very important, as this prepares students for algebra once high school begins,” he said.

Holden is a full-time tutor and must choose a minimum of 24 students to tutor in 12 pairs for a schedule that lasts for a year of service. Last year, as a part-time tutor, he worked with 14 students in 7 pairs.

Holden must commit to at least 40 hours of program service each week. The hours include math service at the site where he tutors his students in pairs, training and professional development, fundraising, math service in the area and non-math service in the area.

He tutors each of his student pairs in 30-minute intervals. Each student in the program must be tutored at least 90 minutes each week.

Math tutors must serve a certain number of volunteer hours (920 hours for part-time members and 1,740 hours for full-time members.)

“In order for a member to fill a large number of service hours, it’s important for that member to always be present at their school on school days, year round,” he said.

Holden grew up and attended schools in St. Cloud. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the U of M-Morris.

“When trying to decide on a major at Morris, I found I really enjoyed calculus and found it to be rather straightforward like algebra,” Holden said. “So, I felt I would major in mathematics and discover just how difficult analytical proof writing can be. Once I received my undergraduate degree in 2013, I felt lost in terms of what career I wanted to pursue. I discovered Math Corps through my mom, a special-education teacher, who had recently transferred to a new school. I felt like giving the program a try, and I can say the decision to apply has been incredibly rewarding thus far.”

Both Bundi and Holden said they have found the tutoring experience to be a rewarding service experience.

Bundi said she loves seeing “the light go on” as students begin to understand the assignments.

“One of the most wonderful things I’ve taken away from Math Corps is a socially active personality,” Holden said. “Having to go to the school each day and work with two students at a time, for 30 minutes each, has helped me to grow socially in a way I didn’t think I could before.”

Holden said becoming a math tutor helped him to realize how reluctant some students are to learn math and how motivating them to want to learn requires a social connection.

Both reading and math tutors commit to 11 months of service and earn a living allowance, education award and more. Tutors come from varied backgrounds and include high school and college graduates, people changing careers, retirees and more.

Area tutors recently gathered with others for a training symposium in Minneapolis Aug. 17-21. The week offered about 2,000 Minnesota Reading and Math Corps tutors a chance to ask questions, gain insight from instructors and other tutors and to learn.

The training gave them basic knowledge of the background of AmeriCorps Service, the tutoring experience and ideas of how to make the tutoring experience better for students.

To learn more about the AmeriCorps Reading and Math programs visit the websites at minnesotareadingcorps.org or minnesotamathcorps.org. Do not apply for these programs through the school district’s website.