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Training to become reading tutors offered in spring

Ripple effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, and ensuing quarantine, are still being felt in many areas of the country, including elementary education.

One area that has seen particular impact is in reading levels of young children. Marquette resident and retired Marquette Area Public Schools teacher Iris Katers is hoping to help combat that reading loss through tutoring, and is seeking other area residents to become tutors as well.

“Some of the best tutors have been trained middle/high school students and community volunteers and grandparents,” Katers said. “You need a quiet place with no distractions three times per week. Thirty minutes is best, but some student’s attention span is 15 minutes no matter what you try at first. Every student is different and has different gaps that need to be filled. I have tried two students at a time, but 1-to-1 gets the fastest results.”

While there are many developed tutoring and teaching methods for reading comprehension, Katers has invested in METRA Structured Tutoring, a process that provides oneon-one tutoring with specific goals to increase reading comprehension. Katers is hosting a free training session March 23 and April 21 for those interested in becoming METRA tutors. The trainings will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Marquette Alger Regional Educational Service Agency, located at 321 E. Ohio St. in Marquette. Trainings are limited to 25 people with manuals. If school personnel and the public are interested, more training will be held through the spring and summer.

In METRA-structured tutoring, a trained tutor uses a manual specific for the age group being tutored. The tutor gives a short placement test to discover what basic skills are missing or need strengthening, and begins at that point in the manual. Then, in 15to-30 minutes sessions at least three times per week, teaches a small group of consonant and vowel sounds. Those sounds are used to make real words and syllables of longer words. Students learn specific words, called “sight words,” that are the most commonly used words in the English lan- guage. They cannot be easily sounded out and should be known on sight (the, where, should, etc). More and more sound and sight words are added with practice. The student reads sentences and stories with just that information. Students master small bits of information and use that information to read, understand what they are reading, ask questions, confidently attack new words, learn more sight words and become confident in themselves and their skills. No screens are involved.

“Our U.P. community can make a difference in our children’s lives and many can be caught up over the summer,” Katers said. “We just need to get trained and do it.”

To begin, the Katers family has purchased 20 Book 2 manuals for tutors training grades 3 through 6. Training will apply for any manual: for beginning reading, middle school, high school, adult and English as a second language. One manual can be used by many tutors.

Manuals and preregistration are required for the training. To pre-register or ask questions contact Katers at grandparentsteach@gmail.com or (906) 362-8932. Once trained, a tutor with practice can train others.

Katers has volunteered to be on call if there are questions once tutoring starts.

“I have used this tutoring program for years because it works fast,” Katers said. “I know exactly what a student needs to learn from the pretests. Does it teach comprehension, encourage reading on their own and love of reading, studying? Of course. Why don’t classrooms use it? This is mainly 1-to-1. Schools must teach 25 students in a short period of time. The day is jam packed. Most students are successful. However, COVID lockdowns and absences interrupted everything and we must fix it now. Children are getting older. They are already in grades where reading should be a tool to learn other things rather than the intense subject that it is in K-2. Generally, special reading programs take care of the few students that need to be caught up. However, there are so many students who need help and few hours in the day.”