YOUNG PEOPLE TEACHING YOUNG PEOPLE: ROSA PARKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND THE MENTORCARES STUDENTS FROM NORTHWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL IN HYATTSVILLE MARYLAND KICK-OFF THEIR SECOND YEAR OF LITERACY TUTORING. 

Hyattsville Maryland-November 10, 2008. Students, teachers and parents from Rosa Parks Elementary School gathered at the school on Saturday morning October 25th, 2008 to kick off the second year of literacy tutoring for their young students. The program partners caring high school students from the MentorCares program at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville MD with Rosa Parks students for Saturday morning reading and tutoring sessions.  

Over 50 Rosa Park’s students and their parents are participating in this year’s program. Twenty-five MentorCares students have received training and will work with the children on eight Saturday mornings during this school year. Visit www.leadershipcares.org to learn about upcoming dates. 

Tutoring sessions with Kindergarteners, 1st and 2nd graders are conducted on Saturday mornings from 9-11am at Rosa Parks Elementary. The tutoring sessions consist of having the elementary students along with their parents move from station to station learning different aspects of reading. This includes guided reading, learning long and short vowel sounds, matching opposites, playing words games, working with phonics tiles, using sight word flash cards and many other literacy related activities. Each station is manned by MentorCares high school students that received training from the Rosa Parks Super Star Reading Specialists in how to conduct the tutoring sessions. Parents work right along with their students moving from station to station. The parents also receive help on how they can continue the tutoring at home.

At the first tutoring session, each participating Rosa Parks student received a LeadershipCares T-shirt, and at the conclusion of each session, a breakfast snack bag is given to each student.

The Rosa Parks team along with the students from the MentorCares team hope to continue to grow the program and train more high school students as literacy tutors! The vision is to have this program in as many local elementary and high schools as the funding will allow.

For more information on literacy issues and how you or your organization can become a sponsor of this program call LeadershipCares at 301 540-5791 or visit the web site at www.leadershipcares.org