BATTLE GROUND — Atticus Tatum, 26, settled into a short chair in the library at Captain Strong Primary in Battle Ground. Clutching library books, third-graders David Josephson and Ian Ebinger, both 9, sat in chairs across from him.
David opened “The Strange Case of Origami Yoda” and explained the premise of the book: “It’s like ‘Star Wars,’ but it’s nothing like ‘Star Wars.’ “
Then he began reading, but he tripped over the word skeptical.
“What do you usually do when you don’t understand a word?” Tatum asked the boy. “What do you think skeptical means?”
Shaking his head, David said, “I’m not sure.”
So Tatum, a teacher-in-training, began working with the boy to understand the word’s meaning through context.
Sitting at the next table, Logan Dellwo, 9, read “Diary of a Worm” to Brieanne Casey, 21.
“What if I’m the only one who eats regurgitated food?” Logan read.
Casey turned to him and asked, “Do you know what regurgitated means?”
At tables and sprawled on the floor all around the library, third-graders practiced reading with college students who are learning to be teachers.
Observing the literary interaction around them were third-grade teacher Tony Melo and his former college instructor, Michelle Rygg, an instructor in the School of Education at Washington State University Vancouver.
When Melo, 24, a first-year teacher, contacted Rygg for advice about reading groups, she had an idea.
She was preparing to teach a new literacy class for teachers-in-training. She suggested her college students meet one-on-one with Melo’s third-graders for about 40 minutes twice a month to help the kids read. At the same time, the college students would get hands-on practice teaching literacy.
The idea for Literacy Buddies was born.
This semester, 25 juniors from WSU Vancouver’s elementary education program have visited Captain Strong Primary six times for one-on-one tutoring with Melo’s third-graders. The Literacy Buddies read to each other and then write about what they’ve read.
The experiment has been a hit.
“Every week my students ask me: ‘Are the Literacy Buddies coming?’ ” Melo said. “It was great having a one-on-one reading buddy instead of me trying to meet the needs of 25 students. My students are benefiting, and the college students are benefiting by getting experience with students and making a connection with a school.”
Rygg was writing the syllabus for her junior survey-of-reading class when Melo contacted her.
“I saw it as a great opportunity for my students to have practical application of what we were discussing in class,” she said.
Both Melo and Rygg hope to continue the program next school year.
“It’s been like gold to my students,” Rygg said.
