When Lauren Hoffmann saw the ad in The Brown County Reminder, she just knew she needed to check it out. The position was with the Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC) at her alma mater, Sleepy Eye Elementary School. Seven months later, Lauren is definitely glad she did.
Lauren is employed by the school through special funding from the MRC. As a K-3 literacy tutor, Lauren works one-one-one with 18 students, 15-20 minutes per day, five days per week.
“The goal is to make sure that all kindergarten through third graders can read,” explained Shirley Tenant, an early childhood special education teacher at the school who is also working as Lauren’s internal coach this year.
MRC lays out a tutoring system Lauren uses called “interventions.” These individual sessions help students with their phonics and fluency. Kindergarteners focus on sounds and names while the advanced grades focus on word blending.
Children enrolled in public schools need to reach certain benchmarks each year in their reading skills. For those who aren’t quite reaching their benchmarks but are not classified as special ed, Lauren steps in for individual tutoring.
Outside of working in the classroom, MRC also requires its workers to get engaged in the community. Thus far, Lauren has been working with safety training, volunteering at a New Ulm thrift store and helping with Helen Maher’s cancer benefit.
Additionally, Lauren needs to make sure to involve her student’s parents. This has included progress reports and a special day held for moms and dads of the kids in her program.
While the idea of helping children learn to read was very appealing to Lauren, she also joined MRC because of the benefits. Full-time members receive free health care coverage, federal loan deferment, a biweekly stipend of $490 and an education award of $5,350.
“I enjoy seeing how much the students improve each time,” said Lauren. “Now I see how teachers feel when students improve.”
As Lauren’s coach, Shirley constructs her schedule and monitors Lauren’s daily work, which is charted extensively on a computer. She is also there to talk with Lauren and coach her through any problems.
“I enjoy that there is something very specific we can do for the kids,” Shirley said.
