Learn about the University of Missouri tutoring program using PRESS!
A Way With Words & Numbers (AWWWN) is a community-based non-profit program that teams undergraduate students from the University of Missouri (MU) with local children to improve their literacy and mathematics skills. In 2019-2020, AWWWN has 14 graduate assistants who supervise and mentor over 130 MU undergraduate tutors. This is a multi-disciplinary team of graduate and undergraduate students coming from a range of programs across campus. AWWWN tutors primarily consist of MU student volunteers or MU service learning students who are seeking opportunities to expand their civic awareness and gain the unique professional development experiences that this program provides.
Currently, AWWWN provides tutoring in 13 locations, including 12 elementary schools and our community site in Columbia, Missouri, serving over 400 students. AWWWN utilizes the reading intervention framework Path to Reading Excellence in School Sites (PRESS).
An initial pilot of PRESS in spring 2015 yielded promising results. Of the participating students in the PRESS program, 48.97% were able to meet grade level expectations at the end of the school year. Based upon these findings, AWWWN extended the program to all 12 elementary sites through collaboration with the school administrators and approval from the Columbia Public Schools (CPS) Superintendent. Local teachers, parents, and administrators have advocated for the PRESS program as a way to systematically enhance their ability to provide evidence-based interventions to their at-risk students.
Results from the 2018-19 school year yielded similar findings and PRESS continues to be implemented in the current, 2019-20 school year with 421 students currently receiving tutoring services provided through AWWWN. Students are selected by teachers and administrators at the school-based sites and are identified by parents and performance at the community based site.
The incorporation of a targeted intervention framework like PRESS has allowed AWWWN to become a data driven tutoring service. Data collected not only helps inform the decision making process for additional supports, but also can be reviewed by teachers, school psychologists, and educational diagnosticians to help monitor progress of struggling students. The impact this intervention has had on the students AWWWN work is seen by not only teachers, but also by the tutors themselves.
A current tutor states, Working with PRESS has been a great use of our tutoring resources. It is a great way to help the tutors work with students in a structured manner. The students learn a great deal from the PRESS lessons and are able to strive off the lessons they are taught. Myself, as a tutor, and the teachers that work with the students are able to see a great deal of growth in the students during just one semester of using PRESS.
Additionally, last year alone, AWWWN tutors provided over 1,362 hours in free, after-school tutoring for families in the community through our partnership with the Daniel Boone Regional Library. Overall, 84% of our families were requesting literacy supports for their child who had fallen behind academically. In response to this need we have expanded PRESS to our after school program. This has provided additional opportunities for MU students to be involved in the Columbia community, receive additional training, and learn new skills - and for more elementary-aged students to benefit from targeted, individualized support in reading.