RSVP to resume and expand virtual reading program for students
If you enjoy reading, spending time with elementary-age kids and can volunteer for at least 30 minutes a week working from home, RSVP needs your help.
The nonprofit community service organization will resume the Virtual Volunteer Reading program. Volunteers read online for 30 minutes at a time with students in grades 1-5, using United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey’s VELLO platform.
Students in 12 classrooms at Cole Manor Elementary School in Norristown will receive the coaching, and discussions are underway to include several other Delaware and Montgomery County as well as Philadelphia schools and after-school programs. In addition, parents may request in-home after-school virtual reading sessions for their children.
“Volunteers should have basic computer skills, a love of reading and the patience and flexibility to work with kids,” said RSVP Literacy Program Coordinator Jackie Matusow.
Volunteers also must pass state-required background checks to work with children.
How it works
Last school year, the pandemic forced RSVP to suspend its longstanding America Reads program, in which volunteers read one-on-one with children at their schools or community sites such as libraries.
With in-person schooling shut down across the country last year, United Way modified VELLO to work for children learning remotely or from home and expanded the program nationally. United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey asked RSVP to implement the program in the Delaware Valley. RSVP reports that last year, more than 200 volunteers coached 354 area kids.
A refinement this year has eliminated the need to connect through Zoom. Instead, teachers request half-hour reading student sessions on the VELLO calendar, and volunteers can view these requests and sign up to fulfill them. When the students and coaches meet online, the student chooses from a set of reading-level-appropriate books. Each book has a set of comprehension questions at the end for the student and volunteer to discuss.
The VELLO platform also includes training and teaching tips for new volunteers.
“We look forward to resuming in-person coaching
when conditions are right, but the VELLO program is here to stay as well,” said RSVP Executive Director Michele Moll. “For some volunteers, particularly seniors, it’s a great chance to contribute to the community from home or office. It’s also provides the opportunity to help more kids.”
A volunteer’s experience
“I enjoyed the personalities of the kids in our interchanges,” said volunteer Dianne Caggiano, who became a virtual coach last year. “I learned things from them. It was refreshing.”
Caggiano also said she was “pleased with the caliber of books. For example, we talked about the rain forest or things that sink or swim — does a watermelon sink? Or we’d learn about time — what people used for clocks in ancient times: the shadows and the sun.”
The book selection on VELLO is provided by RazKids, an educational software company. Its stillgrowing library includes more than 400 books spanning 29 reading levels.
“Whatever the child’s interest and reading level, they have it,” Caggiano said. “The library is rich enough that every kid can find something. The teacher determines their reading level, but there’s also an extra library they can choose from, something that piques their interest.”
Caggiano said she liked the program’s convenience.
“You don’t have to travel somewhere to meet your student,” she said. “But you don’t have to be sitting at your computer at home either. I did some sessions from the beach and on the porch. The hardest part of the experience was getting comfortable with the platform portal. It was fine once I got it. If I needed to know something, I texted Jackie. She was very quick and supportive.”
For more information
• For more information about the Volunteer Reading Coach program, visit rsvpmc.org/virtual-literacy.
• To sign up as a coach, visit rsvpmc.org/vello-volunteer-enrollment-form.
• Parents can request an after-school reading coach for their child in grades 1-5 at rsvpmc.org/virtual-literacy-1.
• To ask questions about this program or other RSVP volunteer opportunities, email volunteer123@rsvpmc.org or call 610-8341040, ext. 123.