I worked with the Shriver Center to tutor children at Lakeland Elementary School and tutor children in reading with the help of Baltimore Reading Partners. The aim of the program was to help students who were falling behind be on par with their classmates. I drove to Lakeland once or twice a week during Fall 2019 and tutored two students in their lessons.
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Gold Level Experience
Intro to the Experience
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Reading is an integral part of a child’s education; words are everywhere, and studies show that students how are behind on their reading past 4th grade are more likely to struggle through school and less likely to graduate high school. For this reason, Reading Partners helps to correct these issues early. Through tutoring these kids, I worked to spread the abundance of knowledge and provide these young students a resource to do well in school.
THIS OPPORTUNITY WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY:
BALTIMORE READING PARTNERS
LAKELAND
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Self Reflection​
SERVICE
My service is admittedly very loosely tied to my selective Grand Challenge but strongly tied to me as a person. I ultimately want to Engineer Better Medicines so that I help patients receive better care. The reason, however, that I chose this service assignment is because without a service like Reading Partners I would not be nearly as successful in my academic career as I am today.
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There were some challenges I faced while completing my service. In order to get to Lakeland, I needed to have my car on campus as a freshman which was very hard to do. I needed to get approved parking with the help of the help of the Shriver Center. After I did that I needed to contact someone on campus to help me pick up my car from the satellite parking lot each week.
Learning Objectives
PROGRAM WIDE
Teamwork
I had to be a team player. The lessons I worked through with my students were based on what they had completed in their previous session. I needed to complete my lesson and accurately leave notes for the person who come after me. Otherwise, the tutor would not know what we’d done, and the student might repeat or miss lessons altogether.
EXPERIENCE
Capacity for Reflection and Community Engagement
Lakeland is a local elementary. By tutoring their students I engaged with the local community around UMBC. As a tutor in this program, I had the opportunity to see how reading greatly affected academic success and how my tutoring was positively impacting the kids lives.
PERSONAL
Civic Agency
Civic agency is very important to me; in elementary school, around 2nd or 3rd I was very behind in my reading ability. I was taken out of English class every day and I read independently with a teacher who encouraged and motivated me. Reading partners is exactly like the service that helped me when I was younger.