The volunteer kit includes the first level of the Reading Outreach Curriculum. This teaching resource provides direct, explicit, multi-sensory teaching of reading skills and concepts following a scope and sequence designed to build and practice essential reading skills. The lessons, along with supporting videos, provide you as a tutor with the support you need to help a reader make real progress in developing their reading skills.

FAQs

How do I qualify to receive the training and kit for free?

To receive both the training and materials for free, we ask that you agree to volunteer to meet with a child for 6 months, at a rate of twice a week and provide your services for free. As a volunteer tutor, you will also have access to additional online training and support.

Can I use this to teach my own child, or grandchild (or other related child)? Or: Can I use this for homeschooling my own (or other) children?

If you would like to help or teach your own child, or a child you are related to, or to teach in a homeschool setting, you may also take the training, but we will request an affordable fee for your participation.

I am a teacher or tutor that charges for my services. Can I use these materials to work with my students?

We ask that professional tutors make the same commitment to tutor one child at no charge, for six months if you wish to take advantage of our training and materials. Our training is perfect for professionals that want to learn more about structured literacy techniques for teaching reading. As a professional, you could also be an ideal person to consider starting or overseeing a local tutoring outreach. We hope that you'll consider it!

I would like to help a child, but I don't know anyone personally. Do you provide children who need help?

Currently, if you would like to be placed with a child, we have a relationship with Sonward Youth Program in New Kensington, PA. They use our materials with their tutors and always need more volunteers. We provide the free training, but you will need to contact Sonward directly at sonwardyouthprograms@gmail.com for information on their program and any additional volunteer requirements. As we grow the number or organizations or churches that train volunteers through Reading Outreach, we will be able to provide additional referrals. Note: If you belong to any church or organization that is willing to sponsor your training, we can provide it for free if you attend our fall training. See below for more details.

Our church or non-profit organization would like to help struggling readers in our community. (Or, I'd like to help our church/non-profit get involved) Can we receive the training?

If you are an organization or church that would like to help children in your community, training is free for your volunteers if they attend our scheduled fall training and a letter of sponsorship is provided. We can also provide a seperate training specifically for your group, for a fee. We recommend considering the following steps:

1.  If there are one to five individuals in an organization that want to start a tutoring outreach, they should provide a letter of sponsorship from the organization and attend the free training in the fall.

2. Keep in mind that you will be volunteers of the organization that sponsors you, NOT a volunteer of Reading Outreach. The sponsoring organization will provide access to required clearances and allow the program to operate under their requirements and guidelines. 

2. The trained individuals will then need to advertise via their organization to find students who are in need of reading help. 

3. We do recommend that potential students be evaluated at the beginning and end of 6 months to determine need and progress made. Reading Outreach can provide the initial and ending evaluations for a fee, and we also provide training in how to evaluate readers, so that a person or person(s) from your organization can conduct them in the future.

4. It's helpful (but not mandatory) if an organization has a person with a teaching degree or experience to oversee the tutoring in your organization.

Does our organization have to use your evaluations and additional training(s)?

No, you are not required to use our evaluation service or additional training. Perhaps you have an educator with the background to do assessments. Or, you can simply start working with children who you believe need help. You will gain experience and help them, regardless. However, you will not have data to show where they started and how much they progressed, unless you are able to encourage their parents or guardians to ask the school for testing or information on the child's reading progress.