In the News: Buffalo State tutoring collaboration featured in the Buffalo News

Buffalo State senior teacher candidate Callan Barber was recently featured in the Buffalo News for her participation in a tutoring partnership between Buffalo State and South Buffalo Charter School. 

The article by Ben Tsujimoto titled, “High-impact tutoring partnership between Buffalo State, South Buffalo Charter helps elementary readers catch up,” highlights the collaboration, wherein Buffalo State teacher candidates tutor elementary students in six different local schools.

“It's the little things – like today, when [my student] was struggling with a single word, watching him get that word after rereading the sentence, my day is made,” Barber said. “It's amazing. It's awesome.”

Jennifer Reichenberg, Buffalo State associate professor of elementary education, was also interviewed. Reichenberg teaches a course for upperclassmen that includes this high-impact tutoring; she piloted this partnership with South Buffalo Charter four semesters ago and has since expanded it to all six sections of the course.

“The teacher candidates really love it, because they establish a rapport with the students,” Reichenberg said. "They see the progress the students make over time. I get to coach them one-on-one as they're teaching that emergent reader. When we meet as a class, we can have really rich discussions because everybody's having the same experience teaching the same types of lessons.”

Buffalo State’s teacher candidates follow a kit-based, grant-funded high-impact tutoring model called Reading Ready, developed and launched in fall 2020 by Buffalo native Katie Pace Miles, founder of New York City-based the Reading Institute. About 100 Buffalo State teacher candidates have been trained in the tutoring program.

Photo courtesy Callan Barber.