Students in the College of Education and Health Professions' teacher education programs recently received free reading curriculum and hands-on learning kits so they can tutor K-12 kids in the state.

The materials were provided by the Arkansas Department of Education's Arkansas Tutoring Corps. As part of the program, teacher candidates will now be paid stipends for tutoring during their practicum hours in reading, as well as any outside tutoring in literacy and math they may wish to provide.

These students just started Master of Arts in Teaching or elementary teaching licensure programs this fall and will tutor kindergartners at Elkins Primary School, a new school partner. The tutoring is provided at no cost to the district, school or families.

"We have tailored the opportunity for our candidates, so they're equipped to be practitioners with real kids from day one of their program coursework," said Kristi Mascher, program coordinator for the U of A Clinic for Literacy. "Not only will this be an authentic learning opportunity for our candidates, but it will positively affect students in our area who would benefit from extra reading support. The bonus is that our candidates get paid by the state to do it."

Mascher is working alongside instructors Natalie Edwards and Wyann Stanton, as well as Lindsey Calhoun, Educational Renewal Zone director for the university, and Bonnie King, the program's coordinator for the Professional Development School (PDS) initiative. As part of the PDS initiative, U of A instructors deliver certain courses on site at area partner schools, integrating their clinical experiences.

Faculty worked diligently to secure Elkins as a new rural partnership school through the PDS initiative.

"This definitely was a group effort to roll out," Mascher said. "We're so excited that our candidates and Elkins' students will benefit from the partnership."

Arkansas Tutoring Corps was developed in accordance with legislative ACT 912 in 2021 to provide trained tutors to assist students in grades K-8 in literacy and math. There are now more than 1,000 active tutors across the state. "The U of A is the largest higher education group to partner with Arkansas Tutoring Corps," Calhoun said. "We're excited to have help tutoring students in Northwest Arkansas. Arkansas Tutoring Corps is also grateful that the university will assist with creating student assessments to monitor student growth and achievement."

She added, "I really enjoyed meeting with U of A teacher candidates during their program orientation. They were excited to get started in their efforts to help students, and seeing their passion for teaching was inspiring."

The team hopes to expand literacy tutoring opportunities to other area schools and is exploring the possibility of integrating math in future endeavors as well.