Tutoring

The free afterschool tutoring program has become the heart of our activities. Over 400 students come after school for one or more hours per week by appointment. We match our students with tutors from across our community.

Meet our students!

Over the past year we have tutored over 400 students. These students range from kindergarten to high school. They come primarily from schools in New Haven and Hamden, but we have had students from as far away as Naugatuck. Although most of our students have English as their first language, we also have students whose first language is Spanish, Chinese or Arabic. The parents of these children often attend the ESL classes or work one-on-one with a tutor themselves.

Our students come to us performing below level in reading and/or math. Some students are reading as much as three grades below level. Our students have success. One second grader advanced from reading at a kindergarten level to reading at grade level in five months� time.

Read �The Sad Turtle,� written by 5th grader Noah Brown with the help of his tutor.

Meet our tutors!

In 2009, we had more than 300 tutors. All of our tutors are volunteers except for twenty tutors who are Yale work study students. Our volunteer tutors come from across our community. They are college students, graduate students, current educators, retired educators, business men and women, administrators, social workers, retired police officers to name a few. Some are fluent in Spanish. Some have advanced math degrees. Some are artists. All of them are committed to helping our students succeed.

Our tutors help our students with their homework. Among the programs they use to increase reading skills are Explode the Code and Lexia, a computer based phonics program. They have access to multiple teaching tools for all levels of math and English, as well as critical thinking exercises. Many of our students have never had anyone work with them one-on-one and they thrive on the experience.