SMART

(Students and Mature Adults Read Together)

 

• SMART is a volunteer mentoring-tutoring program that provides one-to-one tutoring to improve literacy skills in our youth.
• Started in 1997, SMART now has grown to more than 200 volunteers.
• Flexible times during the school day, one to four hours per week.
• SMART provides all the training and support you will need. We do not require teaching experience.

SMART volunteers are helping kids, K through 12 improve their basic skills in reading, writing and math. Our method is simple: we give them individual attention and lots of encouragement.

     

  

SMART is a model intergenerational literacy program that utilizes the largely untapped resources of older adults to benefit the youth of Yonkers. Older adults use the skills, knowledge, and insight gained over many years, and through diverse experiences, to tutor and mentor students who are reading below grade level. Such mentoring relationships have been proven to stimulate students’ academic interest and commitment, and to foster socially responsible behavior. Through the establishment of a nurturing relationship, and with the guidance of a positive role model, success within and outside of school is more attainable for these students. SMART creates an environment that fosters achievement and creates a pattern of success and independence throughout life. This intergenerational literacy program, which began in Yonkers Public Schools, March 7, 1996, has expanded from one high school to 22 elementary, 2 middle and 2 high schools over the past nine years. More than 170 volunteer mentors tutor approximately 300 Title I students who are performing below grade level in reading. Evaluations by the Yonkers Public Schools have documented the quantitative as well as the qualitative success of SMART. SMART has expanded out of Yonkers and into the Elmsford School District.

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SMART brings the generations together in a meaningful and productive atmosphere. We are promoting literacy, positive social skills, cultural and intergenerational understanding and creating bonds that enhance the lives of our mentors and improve the lives of our students. Our students, mentors and community partners continue to praise this program and are always sad when it comes to a close at the end of the school year. They always impatiently wait for it to begin again in the fall.

In the 2009-2010 school year, 13 mentors worked with 479 students in 30 schools in 5 school districts. Pre and Post Reading tests were conducted by all school districts on the children that participated in the SMART program and the results consistently showed an improvement in reading scores as well as an improved attitude towards reading. The Yonkers Public Schools report states that “Students who participated in the SMART program reported more positive attitudes towards reading and achieved higher scores on reading assessments after exposure to the SMART program….Overall students’ increasingly positive feelings about reading and improved performance on reading tests after exposure to the SMART program show that participation in the SMART program may benefit poor readers of all ages.”