Students benefit as they help younger counterparts with writing

Little kids look up to Damon Albrecht, a seventh-grader, as he sits in a second-grade class. Two second-grade students next to him turn back to their writing as Albrecht gives periodic input.

The second-grade students are in Dawn Brand’s Continuous Curriculum School class. Albrecht is among a group of student volunteers from teacher Estella Cordes’ language arts class that helps Brand’s students for 30 minutes twice a week as writing mentors.

Older students help the second-graders with topic sentences, expanding ideas, grammar and spelling with a more one-on-one approach, said Cordes.

“The second-graders are learning about a good topic sentence and my students ask questions and get them to do the writing,” Cordes added. “The key is it’s one-on-one. A teacher doesn’t often have the time to do a sit-down one-on-one with questions for a half an hour, and these are kids the second-graders look up to.”

When Albrecht sat with Will Sharp and Nicole Achen, he watched as they wrote about “The Best Part of September.” He gently reminded Sharp on some basics.

“What do you do at the beginning of this sentence?” he asked.

Sharp quickly said “Oh,” and erased for a capital letter.

Sharp seemed excited about describing a new cell phone.

“Say what kind of phone,” Albrecht suggested to Sharp. “New sentence.”

Albrecht enjoys working with the younger kids.

“It’s kind of fun to help. Writing is my favorite subject.”

Other volunteers from Cordes’ class include both fifth- and seventh-grade students, because CCS is structured to allow students to do subject work at higher levels if they are capable, Cordes said.

Fifth-grader Hanna Highberg worked with second-grader Jarom Rosenbaum.

“What did you write about?” Highberg asked as she began to read his paper. “That’s a ‘u,’ not an ‘a’ in jump, but you were close.”

She added praise before helping him cut out pictures off the page for a scrapbook of his overall writing.

“You did a good job. Wow, you’re a good speller,” Highberg said.

“I got a little help,” Rosenbaum said.

The younger students look forward to the upperclassmen’s visits, Brand said.

“We’ve done this for about three weeks and all the students know they’ll get a chance to get help,” Brand said. “We publish much quicker than we would if one teacher was helping 25 kids. They give them support and these little kids look up to them. It also helps the big kids improve their writing because they see these things are important, like not starting with the same word in every sentence.”

Brand will have had the same students for two years in a row, and she wants them to be ready by the time they reach Cordes’ class.

“I asked her what would help with these kids when you get these kids? She said, ‘topic sentences,’ and she offered to have her kids help.”

EVSD pre-kindergarten program has openings

Openings are still available for the East Valley School District’s free READY! for Kindergarten program designed for children, infants to 5 years old.

Available to families who live within the East Valley School District boundaries, the program assists parents or guardians of young children with early learning strategies prior to kindergarten. The classes also supply about $50 worth of tools (toys) and an age-appropriate child’s book per month from the Dolly Parton Foundation.

Free child care is provided. The fall classes are 10:30 a.m. to noon Oct. 18 or 6:30 to 8 p.m. Oct. 23. Both sessions are at Trent Elementary, 3303 N. Pines Road. Classes are filling up fast, so those who are interested should call the district office at 924-1830 to enroll.

Students sample debate camp

Dozens of students interested in high school debate attended the Try Debate Camp last Saturday at University High School. The camp included a series of seminars designed to orient new debate students and to hone the skills of experienced debaters.

This year’s camp featured a presidential debate format with John Wyss, a representative of John McCain’s campaign, and Dave Olson, a representative of Barack Obama’s campaign, squaring off on the issues of alternative energy incentives and U.S. immigration policy.

Varsity student debaters from participating schools asked questions of the campaign representatives. The debate was facilitated under the rules applied by the League of Women Voters in the actual presidential debates.

The debate camp benefits all debaters and coaches in the Inland Empire National Forensics League District.