Cluster will sponsor two seminars for tutors in November. These seminars will help with students’ academic work and with students who may have been exposed to highly stressful experiences.
Seminar for tutors of struggling readers. The purpose of the first seminar is to help tutors of young students who are having difficulty with reading. Reading specialist Amy Butler will conduct a session about using the Leveled Literacy Intervention kit, which will apply to students in grades K-2. The kit will provide tutors with the tools to use a structured lesson with students while at tutoring.
This link provides more information about Leveled Literacy Intervention. It’s designed for daily classroom use as well as use in one-to-one tutoring. Some of its goals are to:
- Advance the literacy learning of students not meeting grade-level expectations in reading.
- Deepen and expand comprehension with close reading.
- Elevate the expertise of teachers (or tutors, in our case).
- Increase reading volume by engaging students in large amounts of successful daily reading.
- Increase student engagement with books that build knowledge.
- Intervene with small groups of struggling readers to maximize growth.
- Meet the needs of struggling readers.
- Monitor student progress.
The seminar will be 9:30-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, at First United Church of Oak Park, 848 Lake St.
Trauma informed care in education seminar. The second seminar aims to teach tutors about “trauma informed learning.” Many Cluster students have been exposed to stressful situations, such as gun violence or loss of family members through illness, death, homelessness, or incarceration. When students walk through the door at Cluster, we typically have no idea what traumatic events they may be processing.
This seminar will be led by Caleen Kennedy, director of trauma informed education at Chicago Jesuit Academy. Topics will include:
- Trauma and child development.
- The link between trauma and learning.
- Trauma sensitive strategies/approaches in tutoring/teaching children who experience such events.
The seminar will be 9:30-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at First United Church of Oak Park, 848 Lake St.
