Juniors teach English to underprivileged elementary school students

It’s Friday at 5 p.m., and junior Alice Bian is sitting in Almaden Elementary School’s YMCA after school program, pointing to a mouse in “Seven Blind Mice,” a children’s book by Ed Young. As she holds her finger on the blue mouse, she says, “mouse, José.” The young boy tries to mimic Bian’s voice, and after several tries, he is able to pronounce the word properly.

Both of José’s parents are immigrants from Mexico, and Spanish is his first language. José is in fifth grade, but reads first-grade books.

José is just one of the approximately 150 elementary school students involved in The Youth Initiative, a program started by Bian and juniors Cassandra King, Angela Liu and Ami Nachiappan. They try to help non-fluent English speakers improve their reading skills.

Since February, the girls have gone to Almaden Elementary School every Friday from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. to tutor the students in both individual and group sessions.

They were inspired to tutor others after positive prior experiences with working with younger children. While King spent her past summers teaching students at the Los Gatos Recreation Center, Bian and Nachiappan previously worked with young children at the World of Discovery Preschool in Saratoga.

“[One] girl [I taught] ended up sobbing because she didn't understand two-digit addition,” Bian said. “Even though she couldn't see through the difficulty, I knew I could, and it just feels complete to be able to bring someone knowledge.”

The girls originally planned to tutor younger Saratoga students, but realized that there were plenty of resources available in the area and that students were meeting academic standards without their help.

“We branched out toward San Jose and we found their scores to be significantly lower [than those of Saratoga students], so we thought it would make more of a difference if the kids need the academic help and the parents need financial [help],” Bian said.

The girls started reaching out to various schools in San Jose, and after contacting different locations, they chose Almaden Elementary school because of its already established after-school program, in which many of the students are not fluent in English.

Many of the children in Almaden Elementary learned Spanish as their first language and can barely read or write in English, and communication barrier has been a big obstacle for the juniors.

“I talk to them in English and they talk back, but not in English because they [only] partially understand what I’m saying,” Bian said.

The juniors have learned that patience is key. Several of the children at the elementary school do not meet the proficiency standards outlined in standardized testing, and are unable to read books meant for their grade levels.

During tutoring sessions, they assemble the children either individually or in reading groups, and during each session, the children read aloud, asking for help when they need it.

“[There are times] when you read with a fourth grader, you realize she can’t read, and maybe you have to dig out a first-grade-level book for her and start from the very basics: alphabets, pictures and words,” Bian said.

In addition, some of the children have a tough time paying attention and like to ramble on about their families and their day at school.

The juniors use these digressions to develop connections with the kids. Before they tutor the kids, they spend 10 minutes talking with each child about his or her day, which helps the student become more focused.

Since the purpose of the program is to teach students English, the juniors decided to raise money for the elementary school to buy new books and textbooks. Bian and Nachiappan, both captains of the girls’ cross country team, hosted a jogathon at the elementary school on Nov. 20.

With roughly 400 participants, the race raised a total of $1,375, and although they don’t plan to have another fundraising event this year, they want to continue the jogathon and make it an annual tradition.

The girls have given the money to the school, which will use it to add more children books written in English to its library. Currently, most of the children books the library includes are written in Spanish, so introducing more books written in English to the children will provide them with more reading practice.

The biggest challenge the juniors have faced in their efforts to raise money for the school is getting donations and sponsors. Since the juniors are not affiliated with an official SHS club, they are not allowed to fundraise on campus.

In order to garner funds, they needed to be associated with a nonprofit organization, and ended up partnering with the elementary school’s after-school YMCA program in order to be able to call themselves nonprofit.

Bian hopes that through helping the students develop the English skills they need, the kids will be better off in the future.

“I always wonder what it would be like meeting one of the students I tutored five or 10 years down the road,” Bian said. “I’m hoping that the club tutors are setting a sturdy enough foundation so that they get the English language ingrained in them early on.”