MARCH 1, 2021 — Because of the pandemic and several months of remote learning, many parents are looking to tutors for extra help.
“They’re really going to miss out if we don’t take the time to read with them everyday,” Yolanda Cumming says.
Cummings’ daughter is in the third grade. She enrolled her daughter, Harper in a tutoring program through Say Yes Guilford, an education nonprofit organization, to focus specifically on her reading skills.
“I think at this age there can never be too much reading, so any additional exposure I think is helpful,” Cummings says.
The navigator and projects associate with Say Yes Guilford, Alexis Moore volunteered to help tutor when she saw the need skyrocket.
“In the fall because things were so wonky with the school system, it was really unknown if students would go back or not, that is when we saw the increase in need of parents wanting tutors for their students,” Moore says.
Moore meets with Harper virtually a couple times a week for 15 minutes at a time.
“The point of our virtual tutoring is to make sure they get that extra learning that they might be missing because they’re at home and we really want to make sure that they’re seeing growth in spite of the pandemic,” she says.
Even though Harper is back in the classroom, her mom is keeping her enrolled in the program. She says she has already seen improvement in the short-term and is confident it will pay off in the long-term.
Moore says there is nothing better than seeing Harper improve.
“Just to see Harper light up when we start our sessions, for her to be excited about wanting to read, for her to be excited to see that she improves on most of our sessions, that is what I’m most excited about as far as being a tutor in this program,” she says.