Student Spotlight

Mario - Horace Mann Elementary

Mario is a first grader at Horace Mann Elementary School in San Jose.  He joined YES Reading in November and is currently an Alphabet student, working on letter sounds and practicing writing each letter. Mario has already made leaps and bounds in the three months he has been in the program. He went from reading by using pictures cues to now deciphering and sounding out each letter sound to read without fully depending on pictures to tell him what the word may be.

He is an enthusiastic and energetic learner and enjoys spending the 90 minutes with his tutor each week to hone his decoding and printing skills. Mario loves that he is now learning the “right way” to write letters rather than using shortcuts. His ambition also has him eagerly searching for words to read on the word wall, a component of the Beginning Reader curriculum, and is quite please with himself when he can read the words on his own. Mario particularly looks forward to reading out loud and will often choose rhyming books, particularly the phonics series by Colin and Jacqui Hawkins. 

Outside of YES Reading, Mario enjoys playing with friends and working with his classroom teacher. He also looks forward to being old enough to help his dad make boxes at work just because, as Mario so eloquently states, “I really like my dad.” He is also an aspiring football player playing defense and noted that his dad has been helping him. He hopes that, one day, he will be able to play football with his inspiration, his ten-year-old cousin.

Volunteer Spotlight

Pooja Jain

Pooja Jain has been tutoring with YES Reading since the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year at Horace Mann Elementary School in San Jose, CA. She has been an integral part of the tutor team in San Jose, tutoring a 4th grade girl twice a week right after lunch time. She is an aspiring teacher and hopes that her YES Reading tutoring experience will provides some insight into what teaching is like.
1)  Why did you decide to volunteer with YES Reading? YES Reading is a wonderful organization.  I loved the fact we get to work with kids on a one-on-one basis and give them all the attention they deserve...

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Welcome YES Reading San Francisco

We are pleased to announce the opening of our very first YES Reading Center in San Francisco at Sanchez Elementary School! Sanchez is located near the Castro and Mission Dolores neighborhoods.  We have had great community interest in this first month, and look forward to serving at least 30 students during this second half of the school year.  Sanchez Elementary school has both Spanish bi-lingual and English-only classes in each grade.  They have warmly welcomed us to their school community and are excited to be the very first school in San Francisco to host YES Reading. 

If you would like to become a volunteer tutor and help make our newest program site a great success, please email volunteer@yesreading.org, or call (408)945-5720. Tutoring at Sanchez Elementary takes place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. If you know of others who may be interested in getting involved, please forward this information to them or direct them to our website – www.yesreading.org.

Because schedules change, minimum days happen, and special training opportunities occur, find out what is happening at your center.

Belle Haven

Berkley Maynard

Castro

College Park

East Palo Alto Charter School

Horace Mann

Montague

Sanchez

Selby Lane

Winter Reading Recitals

To celebrate the achievement and accomplishments of all of our students, the seven YES Reading centers hosted a Winter Reading Recital. Families, friends, tutors, and teachers gathered to honor each of the 350 students who so bravely stood in front of large audiences, cameras, and camcorders, to read a selected piece of literature.

Each student spent time with his or her tutor preparing for the recital.  Students carefully selected a poem or passage, practiced difficult vocabulary words, and rehearsed public speaking skills. Some students even added hand motions, whistles, and a dance step to enhance their pieces!   Speaking in front of adults and other peers is never an easy task, especially for students with little confidence in their reading abilities, but everyone showed their best efforts and a lot of bravery!  In spite of a little stage fright, everyone performed beautifully!

At the end of the recitals, the YES Reading program presented all of the students with a gift—a specially chosen book to celebrate the hard work and achievements each student has made throughout the semester.  YES Reading would like to give special thanks to the San Jose Mercury News “Gift of Reading” program, and the employees at Morgan Stanley - San Francisco for making this give-away possible with their generous book donations, as well as the volunteers at Onebrick.org for helping us gift wrap hundreds of books!