Read to Succeed Buffalo

AARP Foundation Experience Corps

AARP Foundation Experience Corps is a volunteer-based tutoring program that connects older adults to their communities by engaging them in the intergenerational work of helping young students become better readers. The program helps older adult volunteers maintain a sense of purpose by putting their wisdom to work, at the same time addressing a major contributor to poverty: the inability of children to read at grade level by the end of third grade.

  

By connecting them to their communities, Experience Corps improves the mental and physical health of older adult volunteer tutors.

  • During the 2016-2017 school year, the first year that Experience Corps came to Buffalo City Schools through a program expansion grant supported by the AARP Foundation, John R. Oishei Foundation and the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, 98 percent of volunteers nationally reported that participating in Experience Corps helped them stay physically and mentally active, and 96 percent of volunteers reported that the program increased their sense of purpose in life.
  • According to one study, 96 percent of volunteers reported feeling better about themselves after working with Experience Corps, and more than 85 percent of volunteers felt that their lives had improved because of their involvement with the program.
  • Studies have shown that participating in Experience Corps actually reduced deficits in areas of the brain associated with the development of dementia.

Low childhood literacy has negative long-term consequences.

  • Children who are not able to read at grade level by fourth grade are four times more likely not to graduate from high school.  If they are poor, attend school with a significant number of other poor children and are not reading at grade level by the fourth grade they are 13 times more likely not to graduate from high school.
    • The median annual income of a high school dropout in 2015 was $25,000, compared with $53,800 for someone who obtained a college or post-graduate degree.
    • High school dropouts are more likely than those who graduate to be arrested or have a child while still a teenager.

 

Experience Corps has been proven to measurably benefit students who participate.

  • Students who worked one-to-one with Experience Corps tutors for a single school year saw more than 60 percent greater gains in critical literacy skills compared with students not served by the program.
  • Before the school year was suspended on March 16, 2020 due to pandemic related school closings, Experience Corps Buffalo recruited, screened, trained, and coached 72 mature volunteers who were tutoring 524 students in six Buffalo Title I schools; representing every quadrant in the City. 
  • Despite the abbreviated school year, 93.5 percent of students completed 20 or more sessions and were on track to meet or exceed end of year target of 35 sessions. Of those, 144 or 29 percent had 30 or more sessions completed and 20 students had already achieved the target of 35 tutoring sessions. 
  • Across all six RTSB Experience Corps schools, second grade had the highest percentage of students at or above benchmark at the mid-year January assessment period with 43 percent.  In third grade, 41 percent of students were at or above benchmark for fluency (number of words correct when oral reading) and 55 percent of students were at or above benchmark for accuracy (percentage of words correct out of total words read). 
  • Overall 28 percent (145/524) of Experience Corps Buffalo small group students improved one or more proficiency levels (change in DIBELS benchmark status) according to January assessment results, 39 percent (206/524) of whom with reading composite scores at or above benchmark for the middle of year. 

Read to Succeed Buffalo Experience Corps Went Virtual in 2020-21.

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has required everyone to adjust their activities.  Read to Succeed Buffalo was no exception. 
  • RTSB partnered with the Buffalo City Schools to provide Experience Corps 1:1 Tutoring virtually through the District’s MS Teams platform, in six partner schools: D’Youville Porter Elementary School #3, Early Childhood Center School #17, Dr. Lydia T. Wright School #89, Southside Elementary School #93, West Hertel Academy School #94 and Waterfront Elementary School #95.
  • To that end RTSB evolved its evidence-based structured session model to better meet the demands of on-line learning. The new structured session, focused on fluency and comprehension, utilizes the BPS endorsed Reading A - Z (RAZ) leveled reading program. RTSB staff and volunteer Experience Corps Literacy Tutor/Mentors were required to take substantial training to learn the structured session for implementation both virtually and back in person in the 2021-22 school year.
  • While refining RTSB’s tutoring strategies into a more focused session, primarily focused on fluency and comprehension skills development, was not an uncomplicated decision, there are compelling reasons to focus on a specific, discrete skill – particularly for virtual implementation. Multiple rigorous studies have shown fluency to be highly correlated to overall reading ability of elementary school students. Based on the evidence in the literature, fluency is predictive of overall reading ability in elementary school students from a moderate to high degree.

Read to Succeed Buffalo Experience Corps Back in person in 2021-22

  • In 2020-21, despite the pandemic and virtual Experience Corps Buffalo programming, RTSB supported 54 Volunteer Tutor/Mentors who provided 3,353.25 hours of tutoring (including monitoring hours) and 1,018.5 direct tutoring hours to students through 2,200 tutoring sessions.
  • In grade 1, 81 percent of Experience Corps Buffalo students performed at benchmark accuracy and 70 percent scored at or above in oral reading fluency compared to 40 percent and 36 percent of their peers. In grade 2, 78 percent of Experience Corps Buffalo students performed at benchmark in accuracy and 17 percent scored at or above in oral reading fluency compared to 53 percent and 29 percent of their peers. In grade 3, 90 percent of Experience Corps Buffalo students performed at benchmark in accuracy and 7 percent scored at or above in oral reading fluency compared to 70 percent and 20 percent of their peers. Because students were eager and excited for tutoring, even remotely, Experience Corps Buffalo attendance was an impressive 72 percent of students regularly logging in to remote sessions.
  • In the 2021-22 school year Experience Corps Buffalo supported 47 Tutor/Mentors who provided 2,156 hours of direct tutoring to 137 students through 4,311 tutoring sessions. Overall, 46 percent of students reached benchmark on DIBELS 8 composite score compared to 19 percent at beginning of year.  In ORF fluency 48 percent of students were at or above benchmark on DIBELS 8 compared to 18 percent at beginning of year and on the ORF accuracy subtest 77 percent of students reached benchmark as compared to 13 percent at the beginning of the year.
  • While the aggregate data are impressive – results are even more powerful when one looks at the students targeted for intervention in this RFP and their growth. Experience Corps Buffalo is designed as a Tier 2 intervention - the ideal candidates for this intervention are below grade-level students as defined by their performance on their beginning of year DIBELS 8 assessment.  However, because so many students in Buffalo are so significantly behind, Experience Corps Buffalo successfully works with a substantial percentage of students who test well below benchmark at beginning of year as well.
  • When analyzing these data and controlling for well below students (23 percent of whom did achieve grade-level benchmark in accuracy, 19 percent on composite score) and looking only at the subset of results for below benchmark students at the beginning of the year the data are remarkable: 67 percent of these students reached or exceeded benchmark on DIBELS 8 composite score at end of the year, 54 percent reached or exceeded benchmark on the ORF fluency subtest and 92 percent of students met benchmark on the ORF accuracy subtest from the 0 percent baseline. These results are significant and show that these students are reading with a great deal of accuracy even though they need more practice and time on task to increase reading stamina.
  • In 2022-23 Read to Succeed Buffalo is adding PreK to its Experience Corps Buffalo programming thanks to a grant from the Health Foundation of Western & Central New York.  In PreK Tutor/Mentors will be focusing on pre-reading skill development.  In addition Experience Corps Buffalo will also be adding one Buffalo Public School – Buffalo Science Annex BPS# 59A and Primary Hall Preparatory Charter School, for a total of eight schools with Experience Corps Buffalo programming this school year.

Programs

We are focused on creating support for teachers of economically disadvantaged children.

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Get Involved

Thank you to the inaugural group of Experience Corps Volunteers!

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Parent Resources

You have the power to build your child’s brain – right from birth!

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