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Retired volunteers highlight Experience Corps tutoring to help Phoenix fourth‑grade readers
Summary
Speakers at the meeting described the Experience Corps tutoring program as a volunteer opportunity for older adults that pairs volunteers with students for weekly, half‑hour reading sessions intended to build skills and confidence; speakers cited that only 30% of Phoenix students read at grade level by fourth grade.
Commenter 2, a retired resident, urged older adults to join the Experience Corps tutoring program as a volunteer opportunity to help Phoenix students improve reading skills. “The Experience Corps tutoring program is a great volunteer opportunity for older adults,” Commenter 2 said. “As a senior and as a retired person, this is a way to give back, not only to Phoenix, but also to the students.”
The speaker cited a local reading benchmark, saying, “We know that only 30% of students in Phoenix are reading at grade level by the fourth grade.” Commenter 2 described the volunteer commitment as modest: volunteers receive training and then spend about a half hour each week with a student, working through short reading exercises and games to build fluency and confidence. “It's very fun reading with him,” Commenter 2 said, and added that the program focuses on helping students gain confidence: “They know how to read basically, but for some reason, maybe their confidence isn't there that they can read well. That's what we try to do.”
A student who spoke during the same segment described a personal benefit from the program: “Well, it's helping me improve my reading problems because I have a hard time keeping track on the word. Reading is important, so like, so you can learn how to read and you can be, like, really smart,” Commenter 1 said. Commenter 2 explained typical session activities: volunteers and students take turns reading sentences, practice difficult words, and work on punctuation and inflection; in some exercises a volunteer reads half a sentence and the student reads the other half.
No formal action or vote was recorded on the topic during the meeting. Details about program enrollment, site locations, or sponsoring agency were not specified in the transcript.
