The Literacy Initiative of Georgia aims to provide a valuable online mentoring and tutoring program for young ESOL (English as a second language) students who are struggling with remote learning.
As high school students who understand the struggles of learning virtually, we hope to bridge the learning gap for these kids by working with them one-on-one, in order to help them succeed and improve their English. Every week we hold a session with our students in order to check in on them and see how they are holding up without being able to interact with their friends as they would pre-pandemic. We try to be a comforting support system, where our students can speak to us about whatever they might be facing. Because of our close relationships with our students, we are able to help get them caught up to their grade’s reading levels and ultimately succeed in their school work.
We are a team of passionate and hard-working high school students from Chattahoochee High School, who are also a part of Student Leadership of Johns Creek. We created The Literacy Initiative as our community project for the leadership program.
Our team is passionate about education and more specifically ESOL education because each member of our team comes from an immigrant background. This is why we volunteer our time to work with elementary school ESOL kids from Findley Oaks Elementary. We believe our project makes a difference in the community and is aiding in closing the learning gap.
Over the last year, The Literacy Initiative team has spent countless hours developing this project, working towards our goal of improving the learning environment for kids by equipping them with useful tools. We created a curriculum to follow with the kids, partnered with Findle Oaks Elementary, and worked with eight students. We personalize each session based on the student’s needs and their teacher’s concerns. Because the kids enjoyed the program, there was a higher demand and we recruited more volunteers to ultimately serve 16 bright and amazing ESOL students. To celebrate the first year of the program, we hosted our very first in-person event with games, a book read-aloud, and gift bags made with donations from community members.
We loved the experience and we believe it was very valuable for our community. Our team leaders are currently planning for The Literacy Initiative’s second year.
Anastacia is the project manager and team leader of The Literacy Initiative. She is a rising senior at Chattahoochee High School. She loves exploring languages and cultures. She moved to the United States with her family three years ago.
