I am a woman of many gifts. I am smart, creative and have disposable income. I like using all of these for the Kingdom of God. But with my sweet little kindergartners (I volunteer in a low income school on the north side of the county), I have come to realize these gifts are secondary. Even though I want to use these gifts to love on these kids, the best gift I have to offer them is simply my time.
I have come to realize it is the gift I want to most give them as well. Over Christmas when I was away from them for several weeks that drifted into January....I began to think that tutoring was not so important a kingdom thing. It didn't really change things...or help them and maybe I should reconsider how I use my time. But then I went back...
Time is not only what the kids desire the most but it is truly the most helpful thing as well. So since the snow day Monday cleared things off my calendar this week, I gave them more time. This week with each kid... I reviewed 25 sight words (simple, common words that kids are taught to recognize by memory) and helped them read 1 book to me.
This is what I saw: a handful of kids who after a half a year in school still can't recognize more than five words (two of which are "a" and "I"), some who still don't know their letters or the sounds that go with them, some that didn't remember in which direction to read the letters ( so than "on" is read "no"), and a handful of kids that probably need a referral to the speech therapist. A few of them are already starting to give up on themselves and believe they can't do it. It can leave you wondering if your time makes any difference at all.
But the majority of these kids were really, really trying...they have a great desire to learn to read... and are proud of their improvement. Their faces light up when they achieve something new. ALL OF THEM love to read books one on one. They love being read to...such a simple thing. I wish I could show you a picture of the face of child who realizes for the first time that he can read...he is smart enough to do this.
What they need most...benefit from the most is my time.
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I think it is such an awesome and great idea to volunteer at a school like that (other than your own kids' school)...when you wrote about that in another post, it was a lightbulb to me and made a lot of sense...I will keep that idea in my memory bank for a couple years down the road. Tutor On!... :)
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