Smith tutors aid Somali refugees in Springfield elementary school

(Springfield, MA. October 25,  2008 Ceegaag Online)

Six students at the White Street School in Springfield face a steeper learning curve than most of their peers. These students, Somali refugees who relocated from Kenya to Massachusetts three years ago, receive a boost from a specialized tutoring program that gives them the individual attention of Smith students.

"I learned that [these students] needed extra encouragement and assistance," said Tiertza-Leah Schwartz, Smith's director of voluntary services. "We've formed a really positive partnership with the school."

Schwartz began the program last year with encouragement from a Smith student who did previous work with Jewish Family Services, the organization that brought the Somali families from Kenya to Springfield.

Five Smith students are currently working as tutors for six Somali children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The tutors mainly aid in vocabulary, reading comprehension and understanding the context of assignments, Schwartz said.

"The kids have good social language, but they're working on academic language and context," Schwartz said. "It may seem like they understand, but by doing some prompts we can understand whether they do or not."

Cultural disparities can make it harder for immigrant students to succeed at reading assignments. Students may also struggle with unfamiliar or advanced vocabulary. Schwartz described one reading, about a family moving in a horse-drawn wagon, that Somali students did not understand because they had no previous knowledge of wagons pulled by horses.

"They've gone through difficult experiences," Schwartz said. "The students have been here for three years. Before that they were in refugee camps in Kenya. So they've been through some disruption. They're adjusting remarkably well considering."

Tutors work one-on-one with students from an hour to six hours per week, depending on individual tutors' schedules. According to Wendy Johnson, a reading specialist at White Street School, this individual attention benefits students in making cultural connections.

The tutors "are just a presence," she said. "They have different walks of life and different backgrounds."

Schwartz stated that most of the Smith students involved in the program learned about it through word-of-mouth or publications by the Community Service Office. The students had to go through a screening and training process before being admitted to the tutoring program.

"So far what we've focused on is background for the school and giving information on Somali refugees especially," Schwartz said. "There's ongoing training throughout the year. It's a year-long experience."

Paola Tineo '11 worked with the tutoring program last year and is tutoring again this year. Tineo and Schwartz both emphasized that tutoring requires a substantial time commitment.

"It's a time commitment, and it's an emotional commitment," Tineo said. "But it's rewarding to hear a teacher say that you've made a difference. Having two hours with [the students] and having an extra set of hands there is important because they have a lot of needs that are not being met."

With only five tutors and six students involved, this is "a really small, intimate program," Schwartz said. Keeping the focus of the program on a specific group of children allows for more cultural sharing between students and tutors, she said.

"Most of the kids know each other, they're cousins and they're a tight community," Schwartz said. "We're just trying to reinforce that. We're delighted to be able to work with them. The kids talk positively about being Somalian."

Tineo and Schwartz urged students to consider working as tutors next year.

"Our goal is that as long as there are kids in the school, the program will continue," Schwartz said. "It's a small, specialized program, but it offers the opportunity to work with a specific group of students and their needs."

At the end of last year's program, students and their parents attended a Smith tea.

"The kids came back and that's all they talked about the rest of the year," Johnson said. "They've built a relationship that is a little more than a tutoring relationship. It's a friendship."

Source: smithsophian.com

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