For the past six months, a group of Middle School girls have displayed wonderful commitment, compassion and responsibility as they have immersed themselves in The Smith family’s Student2Student program.
The Student2Student program was trialled by Southwood many years ago and is now an Australia wide reading program developed by The Smith Family to assist young students identified by The Smith Family as having personal circumstances that require external support, with their reading.
Our girls, acting as mentors to an assigned ‘Buddy’, have had to undertake the following:
- Attend The Smith Family training session prior to the program starting
- Provide support, motivation and encouragement to the reader through regular contact with the reader at a prearranged time 2-3 times a week over 18 weeks (18 hours reading time).
- Listen to the reader read for at least 20 minutes and use the “Pause, Prompt and Praise” methodology of assistance & promote literacy activities as learnt in training
- Order new books as needed
- Be a positive role model
- Promote literacy activities as learnt in training
This has been an enormous commitment and required perseverance, care and maturity of the highest level.
The girls have encountered many challenges throughout the program, from technical issues through to Buddies who have been resistant to ongoing support, but they have been nothing short of amazing!
We have recently received data from The Smith family that has shown that all ‘buddies’ have tested as experiencing significant growth in their reading age.
Early next year we will formally recognize and thank the girls involved in The Smith family student2studnet program, and we will continue to support the program in 2018, but as this year’s program comes to an end, I thank and acknowledge the following Middle School girls for their involvement;
Hannah Murray
Laura Mitcham
Jessica Hobson
Camila Franco
Leah Stuchbery
Alana Lawson
Kaitlyn Oldaker
Annabelle Guscott
Phoebe Young
Sarah Thompson
Elise Dunkley
