Last year, we spotlighted one of our students, Marc, and his dedicated tutor Al Odierno. You can read about Marc and why he came to AACLC for help in improving his reading skills: CLICK HERE for that story. In this post, Al Odierno and Marc give us an update on Marc’s progress.
“Working with the Literacy Council is worth the work and the time. We all struggle with something–for some of us it’s reading. To anyone considering being tutored I would tell them it’s well worth the effort.” ~ Marc
Tutoring One Year On
It’s now been a little more than a year since my student Marc and I began working together. During this time Marc has gone from a second-grade to a fifth-grade reading level–but this process didn’t happen seamlessly or overnight.
A year ago Marc was often late to our tutoring sessions, frequently forgetting his study materials. But just last week when I was 5 minutes late he was waiting for me in the library parking lot with an “…And where have you been?” knowing grin on his face. We’ve both learned so much from each other; early on our conversations were brief and monosyllabic. More recently, though, after reading news articles on current issues together, we share extensive give and takes, one literate person to another. Marc has emerged as a confident, engaged, clear-thinking reader and conversationalist.
In a year we have both learned that patience reaps big payoffs. Even heading out into the cold winter darkness to meet at the library after working at a job all day long doesn’t feel burdensome. So many good things have developed during our time together that we plan to continue our study sessions long into the future.
~ Alfred Odierno
