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Kump Education Center is starting the SMART tutoring program this coming week for 5th grade students from Elkins Middle School. SMART stands for Science, Math, and Reading Tutoring. We want our students to develop the curiosity that will make school more interesting and their lives more meaningful. The early grades focus on basic reading and math skills, but not much science.
The 5th grade year is the perfect time for students to make an important shift from "leaning to read to reading to learn." In early grades, students practice phonics, sight words, and reading short sentences, but by 5th grade they begin to be able to read daily adult texts like directions or newspaper reports.
By the time students are ten years old, the curriculum includes more science and social studies. These content areas begin to expand vocabulary and develop higher thinking skills. If students are going to be good readers, they need to have access to books and periodicals, and they benefit from having informal opportunities to talk with friends about the reading they are doing outside of school.
Our SMART tutors and students will take turns reading natural science texts and discussing main ideas. Before students start to read, they need to think of what they already know about the general topic and decide what they want to learn. As the reading goes back and forth, tutors can explain interesting concepts and new vocabulary. Participating in a conversational type of teaching helps develop both vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Parents who read with their children can participate in similar conversations and help kids develop critical thinking skills and ethical behavioral patterns. Literature is the springboard of both empathy with other people and the practice of logical reasoning. The pattern of conversational learning can also be used to help children develop math skills to make choices in real life situations. Shopping is a good time for reading labels and for calculating how much a family can buy with the money on hand.
Each time tutors do reading activities with students they will have math problems that go with the topic in the reading and students will make up their own math problems. One of the reasons that students do not score higher on math tests is that they do not know how to do "word problems." In SMART tutoring we plan to apply math in ways that make it an everyday part of life.
Some of the things SMART tutors will do are already being done in the homes where students have parents and grandparents who spend quality time with their children. However, with cellphones and computers, many kids never get time to talk with caring adults. Even in school the teachers are so busy trying to meet all the technology requirements that they never have time to expand thinking skills. Screens often seem to have replaced people in the lives of children.
Last spring, local school counselors sponsored a "Screen Time Awareness" program to encourage activities families could do together without looking at screens. When Kump Education Center participated in these activities, I realized children need more adult conversation and hands-on learning.