© Please note: Mark Thogmartin owns the copyright for the dissertation below. You may download and print one copy for educational purposes only. These pages may not be duplicated, distributed, redistributed or republished in any manner without express permission from the author.

Nydia, the Nurturing Leader

Background

I mentioned in the introduction to the previous case that a few of the individuals who attended the August training session seemed particularly empowered to begin tutoring projects immediately. This is the case with Nydia. Nydia Mendez (Nydia requested that I use her actual name) arrived at the August training session at the same time as Dr. Shirley Freed and myself, during the last 2 days where the focus was the SMILIES reading curriculum. She had first heard about the Adventist initiative from Dr. Freed earlier in the summer. Because of a reform effort she was spearheading at the Boston public elementary school where she is principal, Nydia was particularly interested.
Nydia has been with the Boston public schools for 25 years, 6 in her current assignment as principal of the Paul A. Dever Elementary School, which is located in the Dorchester area of Boston. "The Dever" has a racially diverse enrollment of 590 students in Grades Kindergarten through 5. Ninely-two percent of the children at the school are on free or reduced lunch. As is often the case in a low-income school such as this, student achievement is low compared to many of the schools in more affluent areas of the city.
Two years ago, under Nydia's leadership, the staff at the Dever school applied to become a 21st Century School, a reform effort under the more encompassing Boston Plan for Excellence. In order to become one of the 21st Century schools, the staff at the school must define an instructional focus, one that will substantially change the way the school functions with an ultimate goal of improving student achievement. Nydia, during a 6- month long detailed look at every aspect of the way the school functions, challenged her staff to ponder the following question:
"What is it that stands in our way, that we believe contributes to the fact that our children do not appear to be achieving at their highest potential?" And the question was deliberately posed towards "not what stands in our way over which we do not have any control?" No, no. It's "what stands in our way, over which we have control, of making sure the children are learning to their highest potential?" (Data File, p. 169)

As Nydia explained, suddenly the entire staff was being required to examine every aspect of their individual and corporate teaching methodology, with a willingness to dispose of whatever might not be bearing good fruit. After this 6-month period of intense introspection, the staff chose literacy improvement as their target reform effort. They drafted a statement which declared their instructional focus as "a coordinated whole school effort to have all Dever students show growth in their ability to read as measured by both the Stanford Nine and the students' ability to meet the BPS Learning Standards for reading comprehension" (Data File, p. 236).
The statement goes on to describe specific goals and means by which the goals would be met. One key element of the plan is to work to provide "individual student support in helping all students show growth in their ability to read" (Data File, p. 236). Several changes were made to facilitate this support. The entire schedule was revamped in order to create an uninterrupted 90-minute "literacy block" where every support person in the school was paired up with a classroom teacher to work on literacy-related instruction. Nydia explained that "having adults working with children was one of our broad goals" (Data File, p. 172). This is where she saw the potential benefit in using volunteer literacy tutors as was being proposed generally by President Clinton in his America Reads plan and more specifically by the Adventist initiative. So she secured the approval and the funds from her school district to attend the August 1997 training in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Nydia had a dedicated core group of parents who assisted with many of the routine support duties in the school–lunch monitoring, playground monitoring, helping with art projects, and similar tasks. She stated, "I had parent mothers in the school who had become kind of like an intricate part of the school, but I did not really have a solidly defined program for them that would give them the boundaries or the concepts for their involvement in a way that it contributed to our instructional goals" (Data File, p. 172). As Nydia took part in the training sessions and as she pondered her school's new instructional focus, she began to consider how these parent volunteers could be used in ways to more specifically further the goals of the school. "[M]y mind was going many miles per hour, conceptualizing how this could be put into operation at the school. . . . The mothers were there . . . and I had a feeling of potential in them" (Data File, p. 175).
Within a few months, Nydia did indeed draft and train a core group of 7 mothers who began tutoring children in reading. When I visited the school in March, 1998, their program had been in operation for almost 4 months. During my visit I talked with Nydia, then I met separately with and interviewed her volunteers, and I observed two of them working with children. One of my goals was to examine key characteristics of successful tutoring programs as delineated by the conceptual framework which I have described above. I was also looking for other themes that might emerge as I spent some time at the school.

Critical Components of Tutoring Programs

Vision
Nydia certainly exudes passion for her work. As we walked into the school on a Monday morning, it seemed obvious to me that her "fingerprints" were all over every cog and gear that turns in the Paul A. Dever elementary school. Teachers and other adults greeted her by name as they gave quick updates or offered reminders of events to come. Children waved to and hugged "Ms. Mendez" as we walked the hallways. And in those hallways, I could not help but notice intentionally placed reminders of the sense of mission that Nydia is helping to foster in the school. An abbreviated version of the Dever School Comprehensive Plan (Data File, pp. 237-238) was blown up to poster size and placed in conspicuous places around the building. A white board with current goals and positive reports hung near the office for all to see. The mission that Nydia has clarified for this school is a very public thing.

Clear Mission and Goals Expressed
The mission and goals for a tutoring project at the Dever school are essentially the mission and goals for the entire building discussed above. All of the volunteers are aware of the instructional focus of the school, that "all Dever students will show growth in their ability to read" (Data File, p. 236). Nydia also explained that the school has expectations of them as parents (most of her volunteers are parents of children in the building) because "parents are the children's first teachers" (Data File, p. 177). One of the parent volunteers, Nadene, described their specific mission as one that is a part of the district-wide mission that engulfs the local effort:
There's a new learning standard that children must meet in the Boston Public Schools. Now, by the year 2000, high school students have to pass the standardized test in order to receive their diploma. What we're trying to do is reach the children at the younger age now that need help so when they are old enough to attend high school and participate in graduation we can help them before there are any learning problems. (Data File, p. 197)

It was obvious to me as I talked with this group (five were present at school that day) that they were driven by the same passion for excellence that Nydia has nurtured in her entire staff.

Clear Expectations of Volunteers
Most of the parent tutors also have other responsibilities in the school. Pam is the school librarian, a position for which she receives a paycheck. The other women have regular, volunteer duties in the building such as monitoring the playground or taking lunch money. The children and the staff depend on their regular attendance in order for things to function normally, and the volunteers are aware of this. So there is a type of "built-in" expectation package that is a part of the volunteering mandate at the Dever. Nydia's ability to foster this level of responsibility and loyalty in her volunteer parents is a positive testimony to her leadership capabilities.
The Dever Comprehensive School Plan states, "We believe that developing a close partnership with parents will produce graduates that are hard working and responsible citizens" (Data File, p. 242). The partnership that Nydia has developed with these particular parents has resulted in their willingness to volunteer extra time to the school. There is no extra statement of expectations that has been placed on them as volunteer reading tutors beyond the general expectations already in place.

Skills

When Nydia first told me about these parent mothers, she remarked that they had become "an intricate part of the school," but that she "did not really have a solidly defined program for them that would give them the boundaries or the context for their involvement in a way that contributed to our instructional goals" (Data File, p. 172). Dr. Shirley Freed, who is also Nydia's doctoral advisor, told her of the Adventist initiative and about the training which would be taking place in August, 1997. As Nydia took part in that training, "there is where the idea of training them [the parent volunteers] properly came into my mind" (Data File, p. 173).

Ongoing Training and Supervision of Volunteers
When school started, Nydia did not begin training her volunteers right away. "We had just begun more struggles of re-organizing our school and the schedule so I needed to give my attention to that" (Data File, p. 175). But before Thanksgiving, when Nydia felt ready to start, she put out a notice to the entire school community announcing the opportunity to receive training in this tutoring project, and that a $100 stipend would be offered to anyone who attended the entire training and who committed to working with children for 1 hour a day. The training would take place over a 2-week period for 2 hours each day–a total of 20 hours of training. Ten mothers started the training process.
The training consisted of going over the SMILIES manual, watching the accompanying videotape in segments, and discussing key theory and concepts related to the SMILIES philosophy. Both Nydia and the volunteers commented on the richness of the experience. The discussions around multiple pathways to learning were particularly potent. Nydia said:
We spent a lot of time explaining things and the philosophy behind it, particularly, and this is fascinating–when we talked and learned a little bit about the notion that you can be smarter than anyone else that you know, they were like "wow!" It was just amazing the quality, the richness of conversation and the anecdotes. You know, "My kid is so good in this," and the music thing, and it was just fabulous. So we were able to latch on to things that, for them, became points of comfort, because they had experiences themselves as learners. (Data File, p. 178)

The volunteer trainees also had positive comments about the training. Nadene enjoyed the training experience, saying:
I liked it. I thought it was fun, because we got to relate to the principal other than just a boss. We saw her as an individual, a person like us, who wants to make things better. And it was, basically, it was fun. We learned from her and she learned from us as a parent. She saw what we'd like to see, and we saw what she wants us to see through her eyes as a principal. We connected. (Data File, p. 197)

Pam also said that she "connected" with Nydia, and that she developed a somewhat playful relationship with her:
Yea, Nydia always picked on me. She'd ask me questions. I just gave her direct questions, answers I mean, and she was just asking me even more about what I felt and then said she didn't know. I was giving her answers to it, and it really helped quite a bit. (Data File, p. 198)

I asked the volunteers if the training had given them confidence for the task. They all agreed with Angie who said, "I felt confidence about it, I mean, I think I'm making progress as I see the student that I'm preparing with. . . . I'm happy about it" (Data File, p. 199).
Nydia expressed concern that she has not been able to offer much in the way of continuing training, even saying she had "done somewhat of a sloppy job in terms of providing that continuing support that is so highly recommended" (Data File, p. 176). But she compensated in other ways, most notably by changing the supervision structure of the tutors. After Christmas, each tutor began reporting to a particular classroom teacher who took responsibility for the tutor and her student. Also, Nydia arranged for Dr. Freed and me to work with the tutors for a short time during our respective visits. So the continuing training has been more informal than formal, but it certainly has not been "sloppy."

Training for Leaders on Recruitment and
Retention of Volunteers

I mentioned earlier that Nydia did not attend the entire 5-day Tutoring and Mentoring seminar in Silver Spring. She did receive a copy of the manual, in which Sahlin (1997) talks about the recruitment of volunteers. Nydia and I did not talk about whether she studied the manual, or about what she may know about volunteer retention. But it is obvious, at least to me, that Nydia knows enough to have recruited and retained the volunteers who so faithfully come to school each day. Nydia did comment that she would like to expand the program, and that she is "figuring out a way of having someone on staff paid to be the on-site coordinator" (Data File, p. 175), a move that would, most likely, ensure the continuing success of the tutoring program.

Incentives

Support From the Administrative Level

The volunteer tutors were offered more support than just the $100 stipend they received for their training and tutoring commitment. They received a certificate verifying that they had completed the 2-week training session which was given to them during a small-group "graduation" ceremony at the end. They also received their own SMILIES manual, a bundle of simple readers packaged in a little box, a set of magnetic letters, and their own budget for future purchases. "They were made to feel like professionals" commented Nydia (Data File, p. 181) as she reflected on what she had done to offer support.
But "this was not the first time" that they were made to feel like professionals, according to Nydia. "There had already been a kinda' ‘pat on' behavior deal so they knew we valued what they did" (Data File, p. 181). This trust, the same trust that Nydia extends to her staff, is very affirming to the volunteers. I noted this during my visit in March 1998, and in my journal I observed that
the women who work for Nydia have their own office–a converted janitor's closet that has shelves, a refrigerator, a microwave, and a coffee pot. It is also used for a storage area for their instructional "tools." This is clearly their domain, and the fact that Nydia provided it to them lets them know that she values their work. (Data File, p. 299)

Resources

Committed Tutors
When you consider the above, it is no wonder that Nydia is so successful in retaining her volunteer work force. They extend to her the same respect that she offers to them. When I asked Nydia why she feels like these parents volunteered in the first place, she said:
I think they volunteered because they came into a building where they found, in the way they were greeted, that it was contrary to any perceptions they had had about what was inside those doors. . . . They felt drawn to something, and a lot of times it had to do with personality. You know, you can't deny that. (Data File, p. 179)

As we discussed whether the motives of the volunteers were primarily egoistic or altruistic, Nydia pointed to comments they had made about their own personal fulfillment:
The first thing that I recall coming out of their mouths when Shirley [Dr. Freed] was there, which I had not heard from them before, was how good they are feeling and how much what they are learning is helping them. (Data File, p. 179)

I asked the tutors why they volunteered to be a part of this project. Their responses varied, but they all indicated that they wanted to help others. Nadene said:
I volunteered basically to help children who don't have the help they need at home, whether it'd be the parents be too busy, or there are students in the best of school systems who need help during the school day, and that's why I'd like to help. (Data File, p. 196)

Francine's motives were similar:

I volunteered because I have three children at this school and an older son who's on his way to college who went to this school. I'm a student of the school and I volunteered so that I can not only help my children, but help other children that's in this community, to see that you don't have to leave the community to make your life a success. And through reading they can make their life successful. Also I would like more parents to be involved, um, because when your children know you care enough to come, they spend the time to do this, they try better. (Data File, p. 197)

Pam had mixed reasons for helping:

I volunteer because I have a son at this school and he has problems with reading and it's helping me to help him to read the way they read. It's hard to explain, but it helped my son a lot. . . . I'm getting a lot from it. It's just making me learn more too, and, I can't explain it. It's natural when I'm reading it to my son, or to the kids I tutor. It just helps me learn a lot more. (Data File, p. 197)

Whatever their reasons for helping, these women appear to be passionate for this program and committed to its success. They know that they are valued by Nydia, the teachers, the students, and the parents of the school. One of their own, Francine, commended her colleagues for their dedication to the program:
I cannot be here every day, I'm going through an adoption and I have a small child which has to be out of her class by 11:00. So I commend these women in their commitments. To my knowledge Angie doesn't have any children at this school, yet she's committed to the students. Nadene and Pam are newest to the community and they are very committed. Julia is very committed. She's always saying her English isn't good, but I understand everything she's saying. And she has the commitment. So I commend them–Pam, Veronica, all of them in their commitment. Next year I'll be able to commit more, but for me the timing, the scheduling is not too good. (Data File, p. 202)

Qualified Faculty to Provide Support
Nydia's qualifications and her support have already been made clear. But she expressed her limitations in being able to provide consistent support to the tutors. This became clear to her right at the beginning of the tutoring program, therefore, right after the Christmas break, she made a change.
What I did this time, through the second cycle, is that they are working more closely with a teacher or teachers from whose classroom they're drawing kids. I had to realize that I could not give them that ongoing guidance which is what they really needed. I will see them working with their child and there were, you know, there were certain things that I was concerned about in terms of the techniques. (Data File, p. 181)

Thus, as of the beginning of the calendar year, the tutors now work with and support children from specific teachers' classrooms. The classroom teachers are more knowledgeable about the specific needs of each child.
Nydia is also thinking about placing the tutoring project in the hands of a paid coordinator. There are two possibilities here. A local college holds educational methods classes for graduate students right in her building, and the graduate students are assigned each quarter to specific classrooms. Nydia is thinking about tapping into this rich resource of expertise by offering the college the chance to work with the tutoring program. There is also a local professional who has successfully worked with the Dever School in another capacity whom Nydia would like to possibly hire for the position of coordinator.

Quality Materials/A Sound, Simple Training Guide
Nydia ordered a copy of the SMILIES manual for each of the tutors-in-training. They used it as is, without abbreviating the length, but they did punch holes in the pages so that each manual could be placed in a binder to simplify handling. Nydia also utilized the entire SMILIES training video, but she showed only a section at a time as appropriate.
The tutors are definitely "sold" on the SMILIES philosophy, and they do strive to use the methods that Nydia has taught them. They make books with the children by cutting out magazine pictures or drawing, they spend much time reading leveled books together, and they use magnetic letters to work on simple phonics principles.
As mentioned above, Nydia was able to provide the volunteers with a small budget so they could purchase more materials when necessary. Some money was previously available through the existing volunteer program for purchases of this nature as well. Nadene talked about how these funds were being used: "We had a small amount of money left so we took the money and bought some books, and some the magnetic letters, in English and Spanish, so she can work with the Spanish children" (Data File, p. 207).

Pam, who is also the school librarian, was concerned about the need for books in their building library. She had been able to purchase newer books for students in Grade 3 and above, but there were very few books for the younger readers whom they help in the tutoring program. She is hoping that the 21st Century Schools grant money may allow them to purchase more easy readers for the younger children.
Now that the tutors are working directly with classroom teachers, they can use the existing classroom materials in their instruction as well as their own materials. Nydia talked about this aspect of the arrangement:
They [the tutors] say, "Well, Mrs. Mendez, this is the book that he's been working on, struggling with. I don't think I want to use that book for this 30-minute period and I say, "Oh, more power to you. Go make your books. Use all that, extract all that natural language, use that as you are generating words–give them a positive experience." I am seeing them do that, but there are always days when what the teacher wants for that child, which is valid, is "here are the words that are important for him to learn," and I am saying, "Ok, that is fine," and I am seeing what the mothers are doing, which is fabulous, because they're giving the child chances to use all the things that the teacher, by virtue of the fact that she has so many other kids, cannot really make available for these kids. . . . The parents, they went out and purchased little magnetic boards and they let the kids form words out of that classes' spelling list. (Data File, p. 182)

Parents Are Informed and Involved

"All my volunteers are family members or parents of the kids in school," Nydia explained as we were talking about parental involvement (Data File, p. 177). She had been very concerned about strained relationships in the past between parents and the staff. Nydia had made it a goal to eliminate the negative "energy" being directed toward the school and to "channel" it in positive ways (Data File, p. 172). This is where the idea of nurturing parents by giving them a chance to work in the building came into her thinking. "Boston [Public Schools] has a history of organized actions toward engaging parents, so when I did not go that way, I really wanted to step out of Boston" (Data File, p. 17). Then she heard about the SMILIES opportunity and believed that this was the answer for her building. I believe that this was a wise move. These parent volunteers, with their energy, enthusiasm, and with their relationships with other parents in the community, are the best "public relations" tool Nydia could have implemented!
Nydia explained to me that there is not much parental contact that is specific to the tutoring program. Once again, this is all absorbed into the larger mission and focus that has been adopted at the Dever. Parents at the school have numerous opportunities to become involved by actions as simple as reading the school newsletters and attending conferences, or more fully by volunteering to work in the school like the SMILIES tutors.

Community Support

Community support, too, is an area where the larger operations of the school "absorb" any specific action that might be directed toward the tutoring program. The children served by the program do benefit from the community involvement relationships that have been established. Nydia explained: "We have a local health center where the employees benefit, and the people do come twice a week and do read aloud with our grades" (Data File, p. 177).

The owners of the newly renovated housing community across the street from the school took notice of all the positive changes taking place at the Dever. They approached Nydia: "They talked to me, and they have invested in the school . . . and it's just about to begin, what you just mentioned, where an actual business will have employees released to come into the school and work with children" (Data File, p. 177).
Another area of community involvement has been discussed above, but is worthy of mention again. A local college has a graduate education program centered in the Dever. Actual university-level instruction takes place in one room that has been set aside for the college. These student teachers do work in the building with the teachers. But Nydia is not satisfied that her building is reaping all of the potential benefits from this relationship. Nydia has a plan:
What I'm finding is that I am not, myself, I am not deriving as much benefit as we should from the presence of the college professors in the building. The student teachers are okay because they're in classrooms, helping us reduce class sizes for literacy and so on and so forth. But from the actual resources of the university we are not drawing a whole lot. So what I'm trying to get is a professional educator who's real into curriculum, who believes that we need to be able to support teachers in their classrooms and do away with this one-shot inservice training. I'd like to think that this individual, if I succeed in getting him there, will work with parents, will provide the training for literacy, will work with the staff, will work with me, will work with the university side of this equation so we can properly become a full, duly constituted, professional development school learning organization that involves the parents, the community, and all the other folks who are out there.

Action Plan

Sound Organization and Management

The above statement is typical of Nydia's forward thinking–of the way she is constantly planning for the success of her staff and students. The current reform effort in the building is a result of Nydia's efforts, and it is also the reason that the SMILIES project has been implemented.
Nydia's strength as a principal, beyond her ability to organize and manage the personnel and schedule of the school, is her focus on instruction. She is very involved in the instructional aspects of the school. We were discussing how Nydia could take the time out of her schedule to train the volunteer tutors:
I also was able to do this in the middle of being a principal because of a block schedule so that everybody . . . you see most of time the principle spends walking around has nothing to do with instruction, but it has to do with keeping people in place . . . making sure our teachers are not out walking the corridors or copying stuff, you see what I'm saying. So with that structure it speaks to . . . organizational management. . . . I mean that had to be in place. I don't ever think that we could have done this or that I could free myself to do that had we not had structures in place for this school in general. (Data File, p. 180)

Close Cooperation Between Volunteers and
People in the School

The way the school day has been organized into 90-minute literacy blocks (Data File, p. 247) has facilitated cooperation between the classroom teachers, the volunteer tutors, and every other teaching and support person in the building. The literacy blocks were instituted at the beginning of the 1997-98 school year in order to facilitate the new instructional focus on reading improvement.
The teachers worked with Nydia and the tutors to decide who should receive the extra individual attention. The tutors now report to their assigned teachers, and they get their "marching orders" for each child's work that day. Julia is working with a first-grade boy who is bilingual, but his primary language is Spanish, as is Julia's. The reasons for the student-teacher match are obvious. Julia explained to me (in her delightful Spanish accent) how she and the teacher work together.I tell the teacher, "He know all this so now he gotta learn all the name for the animals" and she say, "Oh that's good Julia. That's helping a lot." And I helped him out a lot too. He can pick all his animals. So he understand what I'm going to teach him. So he, this year he keeps back [he'll be held back in first grade]. That's another reason I want to stay with him. His teacher ask me to stay with him because I don't want him to give up on this year. The help devoted to him is going to be help to him from this year so when he study this year he learn study habits. The teacher filled out kindergarten all his learnings at length, then when I get the books I started out writing his name and he learn all the letter his name in the morning. So when the teacher gets him back in the classroom, the teachers to have all but two books to read, so when he gets into the classroom with different stuff he can get it. (Data File, p. 201)

Another example of the cooperation that exists between the teachers and the tutors is the way the tutors cover for each other when one of them has to be away. Nydia explained:
If someone is out . . . it's important that there is consistency to it. There's nothing that a teacher dislikes more than if one day a person is ill, and you know how that goes. So they have a little system where there is sort of a backup for each other. If Monica has an appointment, then Laura takes Johnny and Peter. (Data File, p. 183)

Careful Selection of Students to Be Tutored

I talked with Nydia about how students were selected to receive tutoring. She explained:
We went the route of, let's go to one classroom, let's ask [the teacher] if there are six, seven, eight, nine, or ten of your kids that you think would benefit from being worked with one-on-one with one of these mothers during the literacy block. (Data File, pp. 181-182)

Nadene, one of the tutors, indicated that she helped the kindergarten teacher identify which children needed help:
I would pull one child out in the morning for a half hour or so, read to that child, try to get a sense of where that child's at, and poll the teacher so she can find out how many children will fit into this category of, you know, where they are at as a kindergarten child. Now I found that some of the children don't even recognize the alphabet, but they sing it, but when you look at it on a piece of paper they can't recognize any of the letters. They can look at a word and see the word cat because they saw that cue card over and over again through their memory. So basically what I do is I just help the teacher find out where each child is at. (Data File, p. 205)

Of course, the annual achievement tests given to every child in the school represent a more formal way of identifying difficulties the students are having, and which children would be good candidates to receive extra help.
Even though she is thrilled with the assistance that the tutors offer and with the fact that struggling students are receiving individual attention, Nydia is realistic about the tutors' limited training and the needs of children who have severe learning problems:
I suspect that we'll still be very pragmatic about this whole thing, and you just can't take any chances. I mean, we are liable if a parent came and a child ended up being referred for special education, and I would have to say, "Well, his literacy block was in the hands of a person who had ten training sessions." (Data File, p. 184) Therefore, student selection is a negotiated thing between the teacher, the tutor, and the principal. It is based on teacher referrals, testing results, the relationship that the tutor has with the child, other services that are available, and the schedule.

A Regular, Frequent Tutoring Schedule
The Dever School Comprehensive Plan states that, in order to reach the goal of growth in literacy for every child, an "uninterrupted block schedule . . . for reading and language arts" would be instituted "utilizing all specialists and support personnel to support the instructional focus" (Data File, p. 244). This has been accomplished by using, among other people, the volunteer reading tutors who were trained by Nydia.
Prior to the Christmas break, some of the tutors worked with small groups, but this was found to be unsatisfactory. Now most of the tutors work with one or two children for a total of an hour each day. Nadene told me, "I found it a lot better working with one child, working one-on-one for a 5 or 6 week period" (Data File, p. 205). The tutors help each other out in the event that someone has to be absent. Their tutoring takes place during the literacy block for the classroom to which they are assigned. This arrangement is exemplary in its regularity and frequency, elements that are so important in successful tutoring projects (Bader, 1998b; Morrow & Walker, 1997a; Sahlin, 1997; Wasik, 1997).

Monitoring of Student Progress
As explained above, the school's annual testing program is one formal way that student progress is monitored. Since the tutors are working closely with classroom teachers, the teacher helps each tutor keep track of the child's current level. Sometimes, the help is reciprocal as in Nadene's case above.
Informally, the tutors keep a daily log, a personal journal, of the work they do with the students. Angie, explained:
I keep a file on what I do and how far he's improved. . . . I use my own little folder and loose paper in there, I mark it down, what we're going to work on, what we did for that half hour and what I did while I was in there. It's not just about him, it's about me too. . . . I don't think I'd show the teacher. I think I'd show Mrs. Mendez ‘cause she, I'm sure she'd see the improvement. (Data File, pp. 209-210)

I found no evidence, either through observation or interviews, that the tutors use a leveled test or any other criterion-based tool to monitor improvement. Nydia, the teachers, and the tutors are satisfied that the existing testing program, coupled with their informal assessments, is an adequate indicators of student progress.

Lesson Content–Reading and Writing

The school's instructional goal of literacy improvement for all facilitates the work that the tutors do. The training they received in the SMILIES program was oriented around techniques that are focused on authentic reading and writing while working in ways that honor each child's individual strengths. "We all learn in different ways. Our task as tutors is to find the pathway that will unlock a child's understanding into the many nuances of what it means to be literate" (Freed, et al., 1997, p. 1). These tutors are convinced of these premises, and they strive, in their lessons, to go beyond drill and repetition. Nadene said:
The way I see it, there are no two children that are the same, whether they be your own children or children in the school. Now the pathways, you can find a different category to sit that child under to help them. So there is basically something for every child in it. There's not just one set, you know, child. You can help any child through the seven pathways. (Data File, p. 204)

I watched as tutors read simple, leveled books with their children. I saw the books that the students and their tutors had made together–books illustrated with hand-drawn pictures and photographs cut from magazines. The volunteers told me about how they were using magnetic letters, word games, music, and movement to help the students learn. They also helped the children with spelling and vocabulary words. Nydia explained that "there are days when what the teacher wants for that child, which is valid, is ‘Here are the words that are important for him to learn' and I am saying ‘OK, that is fine'" (Data File, p. 182). Even with this simple task the tutors are striving to use different approaches, different pathways. When Angie was given a spelling list to work on with her child, she used her magnetic board and letters. "We put the word down for the child, have him spell it, mix the word up, and see if he can put it back how it should be spelled" (Data File, p. 200).
The tutors and the teaching staff are working as partners in the common goal of literacy for all. Nydia would like to train more parents, and she would like to provide more training for the parents who are tutoring now.
Nydia's tutoring program at the Paul A. Dever Elementary School has been operating for only a few months. Already it appears to have become an integral part of the new schedule and focus that has been implemented at the Dever just this year. I have analyzed this tutoring program using the framework of critical components that I proposed in chapter two. I have shown that many of the characteristics of effective programs are evident in this program, yet no one believes that it is operating at peak efficiency. Nydia, the tutors, and the entire teaching staff are committed to "a coordinated whole school effort to have all Dever students show growth in their ability to read" (Data File, p. 236).

Other Observations
In the previous chapter I explained the process I used to identify other themes that emerged as I read and reread the transcription of my interviews with Arnold and his tutors. I did the same as I worked through the transcriptions of my conversations with Nydia and her volunteer tutors. One alternative theme did emerge that I describe below, one that has to do with the personal benefits derived from volunteering to work with children in a literacy project.

Personal Benefits Derived From Tutoring

In chapter two, I discussed the research that has been done on the motivations that people have for offering themselves as volunteers. Most studies have indicated that students and older people alike volunteer for reasons that are, at first, egoistic. That is, they volunteer because there is personal benefit in it for them (Serow, 1991; Serow et al., 1990). This is not to say that there is an absence among volunteers of the desire to help others; certainly altruistic motives factor into the phenomenon (Fitch, 1987; Winniford et al., 1995). It appears obvious that an individual must be convinced that volunteering, no matter how worthy the cause, will be beneficial to him or her before committing to the task or in order to continue once he or she has started.
This group of volunteers, when I asked about their reasons for volunteering, began by talking about how much they genuinely wanted to help the children. Dr. Freed, after her visit to Nydia's school, mentioned their noticeable commitment to me in an E-mail communication:
When they talked to me they were clear that what they thought they did well, that teachers didn't have time to do, was really show the children that they loved them, with hugs and smiles and lots of warmth. It's not that teachers can't/don't/won't do these things–it's just that when you have 30 kids you get spread pretty thin! (Data File, p. 312)

But as we continued to talk, they also indicated that their training with Nydia and their subsequent engagement as tutors were extremely encouraging to them personally. Angie's words verify this:
I have a lot of satisfaction about this. I'm beaming about it. I mean, I see him (the child she tutors) in the morning. He's excited. I get excited. If my work wasn't a payback, if I didn't see improvement, I wouldn't know how to work. (Data File, p. 209)

Pam commented that tutoring is "just making me learn more. . . . It's just natural when I'm reading it to my son or to the kids I tutor, it just helps me to learn a lot more" (Data File, p. 197). Francine said that she tutors to show the children of the school that "you don't have to leave the community to make your life a success" (Data File, p. 197), revealing her belief that a person who tutors is as successful as anyone else.
The SMILIES focus on learning pathways–the idea that people can be smart in ways other than traditional academics alone–was especially affirming to these parents. Pam and Nadene both commented on the "connectedness" they felt during the training process. When Nydia and I were discussing the motives of the volunteers, Nydia agreed that egoistic motives were definitely present. Nydia's assessment of why this might be true had to do with the feelings of self-worth they derived from the discussions around the seven pathways and personal gifts.
We were able to latch on to things that, for them, became points of comfort, because they had experiences themselves as learners. . . . A lot of it had to do with the fact that nobody recognized they were smart in other ways. (Data File, p. 178)

Nydia adds to these positive feelings of self worth by making the volunteer tutors feel like professionals. They are a vital part of the school's academic mission and schedule. Nydia depends on these people in many ways that even go beyond tutoring.
One of the two other themes that emerged in the previous chapter also had to do with emotional needs and support. Perhaps an emotional component should be added to the framework that I proposed after completing the review of the existing literature. If people do volunteer partially because of some felt needs they may have, those who operate tutoring projects would be wise to recognize these needs and contribute toward meeting them. I expand more upon this idea in chapter eight where I offer concluding observations and recommendations.