University students are volunteering to go back to the basics of reading in a local mentoring program.
The “To Highland with Love” program is run by University Baptist Church and is a community outreach program designed to aid Highland Elementary School.
The most successful aspect of the program is the Reading Friends program, which recently has grown to include the University’s Honors College.
Michael Tipton, Honors College Council President and program volunteer, organized the Honors College effort last semester, recruiting its members to the Reading Friends program.
“We put in about 20 new students through this program,” Tipton said. “Reading Friends has really taken a life of its own.”
University volunteers also come from three service learning classes that require students to participate.
Although it is required, Chris Hester, a general studies junior, said the experience is beneficial to both parties.
“I like it,” Hester said. “It’s pretty cool. You get a different outlook on things.”
Hester is a Reading Friend to a Highland Elementary first grader, and is enrolled in a social work class requiring his involvement.
“We’re LSU students and they look up to us,” Hester said. “We learn from each other.”
“To Highland with Love” coordinator Carolyn Cavanaugh said last week in an e-mail to volunteers that the program currently has 207 volunteers working with 230 children at the school.
“We welcome the 70 new Reading Friends who have joined us through LSU Service Learning and the Honors College,” Cavanaugh said.
She said that with the new University volunteers, there now are only 12 children in the school’s first through fifth grades that do not have a Reading Friend.
“The important thing here is that each number represents a positive relationship between a child and adult that makes a difference,” Cavanaugh said.
91 percent of the children who have worked with Reading Friends improved in their reading, and 28 percent showed significant grade improvement since the beginning of the year, Cavanaugh said.
“The main idea is that there is this school next to the church that needed help,” Tipton said. “Basically, this church adopted the school.”
Tipton said the program began with church parishioners, but at this point provides backing and resources to the program. The program is open to volunteers of all denominations.
“God basically tapped me on my shoulder and said, ‘You’ve got time for this,'” Tipton said.
The way the program works, volunteers read with children for at least 30 minutes, twice a month. Hester said his service learning class requires weekly 30-minute visits.
“I was surprised by their excitement about reading,” Hester said.