COLLEGE STATION, Texas — How children are learning and growing is changing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it might be too soon to say how much education has been affected, a group at Texas A&M University is looking to help struggling students.
“For some, it may be easier to turn on a dime and learn in a different way and for other students, it just hasn’t quite been there," said Dr. Heather McMahan, the director for the Texas A&M Reading Clinic.
The Texas A&M Reading Clinic is offering its services to a limited number of K-12 students this semester for free.
Students will receive assessments, a careful review of their needs, evidence-based interventions tailored to the needs of the child and progress monitoring to actively encourage improvements. Their goal is to improve literacy for children.
“What they can expect is a pure focus on reading and instruction on reading," McMahan said.
Typically, the program goes through local school districts to tutor students. For the Spring 2021 semester, they're opening it up to the whole community.
"They don’t have to be local or living in the B/CS area," McMahan said. "We are just looking for students that we can help that are aspiring readers who maybe have missed out on instruction over the past year.”
The tutors are pre-serviced Aggie teachers and Aggie graduate students.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for students to get that one-on-one time," said Jennifer Houtchens, a tutor with the Reading Clinic.
Houtchens is in grad school and wants to become a kindergarten teacher. She said she became a tutor because it'll give her real-world experience for her future career.
“I didn’t want to just teach it, I wanted to be really good at teaching reading in kindergarten because that’s kind of the foundation for where a lot of it begins for kids," Houtchens explained.
Houtchens and more than 100 other tutors are available two ways. Students can either visit the reading clinic at the Harrington Education Building on the Texas A&M campus or they learn virtually via Zoom.
“It gives them a tutor where they’re working one-on-one so they have that relationship with them," Houtchens said. "Hopefully, they’ll be able to smile and have fun while learning again."
Tutoring is available throughout the day and after school. The Reading Clinic will accommodate schedules for homeschool students, virtual learning students and students following a traditional in-person school day schedule.
To register a child, click HERE.