Frequently Asked Questions
About the Program
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How does Community Reading Buddies select students for its program?
Among our young readers, we prioritize students from Title I schools who are currently below grade level in literacy. After the initial eight-week cycle, we continue to invite those students to future cycles until they reach grade level. Initially, we will at first connect with those students either through an arrangement with their school or outreach through the school’s district.
Many of our youth mentors come to us through Oakland’s Exploring College, Career, and Community Options (ECCCO) internship program. Others come from the dozens of Bay Area high schools we’ve established a relationship with over our 27-year history. Mentors go through an application and training process, with commitment and passion being the most important indicators of success.
As much as possible, we attempt to pair youth and young readers according to languages spoken and geography.
How long are students generally in the program?
Each Community Reading Buddies cycle is eight weeks. However, most of our middle and high schoolers choose to volunteer again. And young readers who don’t reach grade level in literacy are invited back until they do.
What curriculum do you use?
CRB’s curriculum is aligned with the five core elements of the Science of Reading, including:
- Phonological Awareness
- Phonics
- Fluency
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension
We are proud to partner with BookNook, a digital literacy platform where Youth Mentors and their Buddies engage in literacy activities via online video conferencing. BookNook helps us meet every student’s individual needs, according to their exact reading level, through fun literacy activities and level-appropriate and carefully-selected books.
How can I get my child enrolled in Community Reading Buddies?
Advocate with your school! Tell them to contact us and express interest in a virtual, live visit of the program. You can also contact us to express your personal interest, but we cannot guarantee programming. We find our students are most successful when programming is done in partnership with schools and districts.
How do you know it works?
Every lesson and activity students are taken through on BookNook collects data on what the students are excelling at and what they still need work on. That data is used to show us each student’s progress and is cross-referenced with “leveling” assessments we’ll give them at the end of the program as well as with their school’s data. Amazingly, over each 8-week cycle, our readers average four months of growth in literacy! That would be two full years of growth over each year.
About Volunteering as a Youth Mentor
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Who is eligible to volunteer?
Any Bay Area 7th-12th grader is welcome to apply!
How are the youth mentors selected?
The most important characteristic is commitment. During the application and training process, we look to see that you are committed, reliable, and enthusiastic. Then in the matching process, we place extra emphasis on pairing students together from similar neighborhoods and schools. However, the majority of our mentor applicants do get accepted!
What is the commitment?
The minimum commitment is 3 hours per week for 8 weeks (1.5 hours per session, twice a week); however, you can volunteer up to 20 hours per week.
During the program, Youth Mentors will meet with a TK-3rd grade student engaging with fun literacy activities via video conferencing. We ask Youth Mentors to commit to the full eight weeks in order to build a strong relationship with their Buddies.
Each session is scheduled as follows:
- 15 min — Power Up! Skill Building Mini-Session
- 60 min — Ready? Set. READ! One-on-one literacy activities with your Buddy
- 15 min — Wrap Up! Youth Mentor Debrief
How are the youth mentors trained?
Youth mentors are first invited to a 3-hour training in which they have the opportunity to connect as a community, get familiar the basics of early literacy development, and learn critical skills in connection, confidence, and communication. Both the technical skills of the program and the social-emotional skills that they can carry with them long after the progress are reinforced throughout the program, through a 15 minute training before each 1:1 with their reader and the 15 minute debrief afterwards. In the end, 96% of our youth mentors report growth as leaders and communicators.
What if I can’t make all the sessions?
Just let us know with plenty of notice, so we can make sure your reader can join with another group. But if you’ll need to miss more than 2 sessions over the course of the 8 weeks, please let us know during the application process.
About Volunteering as an Adult
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Do you take adult volunteers?
We do! While the core programming of Community Reading Buddies is driven by our youth mentors, we strive to support our youth mentors just as much as they support our young readers, by providing mentoring sessions to help them with their resumes, college applications, and initial career questions. If you’re interested in helping in that area, please contact us here and provide more of your background and reason for interest.
Didn’t find the answer to your questions?
Please reach out to us through our contact form here.