By Diana Cabrera, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor At the beginning of the school year, I began working with a first grader named Arielle. She knew her letter sounds and could blend them into syllables, for the most part, but when it came to reading, she would switch all sorts of letters and vowels, sometimes even […]
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Blog
11 a.m. on a Wednesday
By McKenna May, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor It’s 11 a.m. on a Wednesday and I’m sitting at home, on my couch, trying to type with a dog on my lap. This doesn’t seem like a bad place to be. I love my dog and this couch is very comfy. If this were a weekend or […]
Read MoreGrow as You Go
By Diana Cabrera, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor Becoming a Literacy First tutor has been one of the most spontaneous events in my life. While I theoretically enjoyed working with children, I never imagined myself at a desk working on reading fluency with a young student. It was one of the best decisions I have ever […]
Read MoreMy First Student
By Bailey Barfield, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor As I get acclimated to this new normal of sheltering in place, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my service year up to this point. On the Monday when we all should have been returning to school after spring break, I found myself thinking […]
Read MoreCracking the Code
By Illan Kunik, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor During Literacy First’s pre-service training for tutors, I remember hearing incredible stories from past tutors and Supervisors about students who, as they described it, “broke the code before their eyes.” What they meant by this is that all of a sudden, whether it be during a lesson or […]
Read MoreFinding my Passion
By Rachel Peterson, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor Teaching children to read has become a beautiful passion of mine. I read the other day about passion, and the word had such connotations of suffering attached to it until recently. Now the entirety of us is concerned with finding their passion. So if it means to suffer […]
Read MoreA Letter to my Students
By Anna Latimer, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor Dear students, During this time, it is good for us to take note of and voice our feelings. I would like to share mine with you. First of all, I am sad. I am sad that I did not get to properly send you off to your spring […]
Read MoreA Community that Cares
By Britanny Barcliff, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor I have been working alongside Austin Voices for Education and Youth for the past year and a half, as I started volunteering with them for my community partnership as a Literacy First tutor. I have been able to help as they unloaded trucks full of food pallets from […]
Read MoreI can finally read!
By Anna Latimer, 2019-2020 Literacy First Tutor Once upon a time in a faraway land, there lived a magical individual, who every day turned into something different. One day, she was a cat (or so she claimed). She had been about to leave her jacket at my tutor station for the day, but when I […]
Read MoreLearning, Working, and Thriving from Home
Resources During COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic
The following is a compilation of resources members of the Literacy First and Central Texas community have shared during these extraordinary circumstances.