Read to Succeed comes to Falls

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Read to Succeed Buffalo (RTSB) is expanding its AARP Foundation Experience Corps Program to serve students in 1st and 2nd grade in Niagara Falls City Schools. Since 2016, RTSB has been recruiting and training older adult volunteers as literacy tutor/mentors for students, Pre-K – 3rd Grade, in the Buffalo Public Schools.

This school year, Experience Corps volunteers have already provided nearly 10,000 individual tutoring sessions to nearly 400 Buffalo Public School students. RTSB is actively recruiting more volunteers to serve as tutor/mentors in the 2025-26 school year in both Buffalo and Niagara Falls City Schools. Prospective volunteers can fill out a volunteer interest form and learn more about this opportunity at: https://www.readtosucceedbuffalo.org/volunteer-interest-form.

“RTSB Experience Corps high impact tutoring is a national best practice that capitalizes on the social capital of retirees in the Buffalo Niagara Region. In partnership with the AARP Foundation RTSB recruits, screens, trains and supports older adult volunteers to provide one-to-one literacy tutoring and mentoring to below grade-level elementary students, one-on-one tutoring has been shown to have better outcomes than much more expensive strategies including reduced class size or computer based ed tech programs,” Ryan stated.

Experience Corps tutor/mentors meet individually with each student two-three times per week for 30 minutes per session, every week of the school year. Sessions are very structured and focus on building fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills in students in 1st-3rd grade through repeated reading practice and models of fluent reading. Experience Corps tutor/mentors receive significant training in the Science of Reading and are supported on-site at schools with an RTSB literacy coach.

“One-on-one individualized literacy tutoring from a highly trained, committed and supported older adult is exactly what will help some of our students achieve grade-level proficiency in reading,” said Niagara Falls City Schools superintendent Mark Laurrie. “Achieving literacy skills at a young age builds the foundation for future success, and we are very excited to get this results-driven initiative started in our schools.”

Here’s volunteer film footage. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Pz2Kdq5FNFx5CvaKHp-uGSGgRaLscBEt