Barbara Brown, Valley Christian Center, Norseman Elementary
"I think I first heard about Literacy Mentoring through the Central Valley School of Ministry where I was a student. We helped with a Saturday Sports program and then got some ENP orientation at your office. The Literacy Mentoring program piqued my curiosity, and in 2019 I got involved.
Connecting with my student virtually this year went from being impossible to complicated to workable to pretty good as the year progressed. Many thanks to Jenessa for walking me through training after training until we found out what worked. Now my student is about to return to his live class, and one thing that worried him was the thought that he and I might not be able to keep on working together. Of course, we will. We are a team!
The beauty of these online sessions is the ability to be 100% involved with just one student. Take advantage of your time together. Find out what he or she likes, and build that into your lessons. My young man gets excited about things he has seen on YouTube, so I have him assign me "homework" and I go watch the latest thing that he is curious about. "How to survive a tornado?" Extra flashcard -- "tornado" -- of course.
Practical advice: Don't use novelty background programs, except maybe for a fun start to a session. Anything that you try to show to your student disappears into the background because the program recognizes that it is not part of a human being.
My favorite book? "Paul" a novel by Walter Wangerin, Jr. The author goes behind the scenes of the Apostle Paul's life, fleshing out the Bible characters and helping to make sense of things like the dietary squabbles in the early church that seem almost silly to us today. First I borrowed the book from a friend, then I borrowed it again, and then I bought my own copy. I actually found myself relating to that irascible, passionate man of God.
Favorite Bible verse: Isaiah 54:5 (NASB)
"For your husband is your Maker,
Whose name is the LORD of hosts;
And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,
Who is called the God of all the earth."
Thank you Barbara for sharing your story! We are thankful for you!
Bonus: A note of gratitude from Juan's teacher, Mrs. Ramona Junior
Barbara is simply amazing- the students that she individually works with truly love her and she forms a close connection with them. She has a fantastic quality about her when she is helping students with virtual learning, she doesn’t really realize how she is helping with their social-emotional needs. Students need that one-on-one time and they feel very comfortable with her. She also gets very excited and happy when they can read a list of phonics words and continue to move up words to the next set of words. Barbara makes everyone feel special, just as special as she is.
She has been a blessing for me these last two years!!
