00:00
Sophia Magnanini
Oak City Move is a podcast on WKNC's 88.1 FM HD 1 Raleigh where we highlight people and organizations creating positive change in the Triangle and beyond. Oak City Move can be heard on air every Other Monday on 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh or online at wknc.org Listen for episodes and more information, go to our blog at blog.wknc.org or follow us on SoundCloud at wknc8801. Hello 88.1 WKNC Raleigh. The song you just heard was Sweaty linen by Surf Ninja 3. I'm Sophia Magnanini, your host and you're listening to Oak City Move. Today we are joined by a very special guest, Avery Hobgood, volunteer and engagement coordinator for Read and Feed.
00:50
Sophia Magnanini
So first off, I just want to thank you so much for coming in and joining me today and also if you wanted to just kind of explain an overview of what Read and Feed is for listeners who may not know.
01:02
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and share more about Read and Feed and what we do. So our mission at Read and Feed is to strengthen literacy skills among underserved elementary school children and provide meals in a nurturing neighborhood environment. So we are of nonprofit that's based here in Cary, so very close to Raleigh. But we serve students all across county. So the main way that we, you know, go about fulfilling our mission is through our after school literacy tutoring program. Our students are referred to our program. They come to Read and Feed once a week. They get literacy tutoring, they get a healthy snack and a meal and they also get to self select three books every single week that they get to keep and take home. So that's the main bulk of our program.
01:52
Avery Hobgood
But there are other ways that we also get at our mission and I'm sure we'll get into that throughout the rest of this.
02:00
Sophia Magnanini
Perfect. No, that's awesome. If you kind of wanted to explain what Read and Feed mission kind of looks like in the day to day work or kind of what the typical tutoring session might look like.
02:12
Avery Hobgood
Absolutely. So we have sites that are meeting Monday through Thursday. So every night we have Read and Feed site and where sites are all across the county that's meeting. So students come to tutoring, they have a snack for the first few minutes of their session where they get to sit down with their tutor, enjoy some goldfish and a juice box, or catch up with their Read and Feed friends. And that really helps to kind of Set the tone toward transitioning into the rest of the session. So they first have that snack time and then they have about 15 minutes of a game time. So they'll break up to their groups. Ideally it's our students are one to one student to one tutor. We have that one one model and they'll select a literacy game.
03:03
Avery Hobgood
And we of course provide all of our sites with the materials that they need. So we have a variety of games that we call our curriculum Games at each site. And they each are actually labeled with a component of literacy. So the five components of literacy are what our program is really based the science of reading. Well, so each game is labeled with one of those components. And our student, their tutor will pick out a game is also in alignment with the component that the student is currently working on. So they'll play that for the first 15 minutes or so. Here's an example of one right here. This is Xingo and as you can see, it's got little phonics reading sticker on the top.
03:51
Avery Hobgood
And so they'll play their game for about 15 minutes and then they actually after the game transition to our one minute progress check. Our progress checks are again, each one is based one of the components of reading and they're just quick little one minute checks that are designed to help us see where our student is at with that component of literacy and how they're progressing every single week. And that check is designed to just take one minute so that our students don't feel like they're sitting down to take a test or have any dread around it. It's super fast one minute and helps us measure that data week to see where they're at. And then for the rest of the session, the student and the tutor will pick out a book from their book club bins or what they call what we call them.
04:39
Avery Hobgood
They'll both have a copy of the book and they'll spend that time reading together. So it might look more like the student most of the reading. It might look like in some cases the tutor is really stepping in to help the student through reading the book. Just it's based on wherever that student is at. And of course with the goal of getting to them, getting them to that point of the student is reading the majority of the book. And then at our sites, the majority of them are students on their way out the door will get their bagged take home meal or their hot take home meal that of course they'll then enjoy at home. But that is what a typical session Consists of.
05:18
Sophia Magnanini
That's awesome. And it also sounds like you guys are creating such a nice and inviting community for the kids to come into, which I feel like is really important. And also just the way you guys were describing how you kind of work on literacy, it is much more engaging than what maybe a typical like school day would look like, which I feel like is also really important. And you kind of answered what my next question was going to be. But how do you measure or observe improvement in the students reading and confidence skills? I know you're saying that you guys did the one minute little quizzes. Is there anything else or like as you guys kind of go on throughout the sessions?
06:01
Avery Hobgood
Yeah. So that like I mentioned, that little progress check is our main component for measuring our students progress and things like that. And it also helps to provide us with data at the end of the year on our student improvement and things like that. So yeah, each check, each component of literacy, there's phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each component has its own progress check that is designed to sort of course, as I mentioned, measure the progress for that specific component. So for example, the fluency passages are small reading passages that help us where we can, you know, gauge the number of words or what line a student should have gotten to that can help us to measure whether or not they have sort of mastered that skill.
06:55
Avery Hobgood
And mastery is what a student has to show certain progress check before we move them to the next component and work on that next component. And mastery isn't just they did it one good to go. They've got to do it a minimum number of times continuously in a row for however many weeks for us to really be sure that they have improved in that skill and are ready to move on to the next. So it provides us a good overview of where our kids are at and our awesome program coordinators who are members who go out to all of our sites to make sure things run well every week, are reviewing our student progress check data that our tutors fill out on a little sheet that they're provided with every week to everything is going smoothly.
07:45
Avery Hobgood
See if we have a child who hey, we on this but they're actually immediately doing really great on it. Maybe we should move them to the next component or vice versa. Maybe a child's struggling with something and it might best if we move them back a component. We have them reviewing those every week to make sure that all of our students are working on the skill that they really need to be working on at the Time. So it's great data for us to keep progress. And also for us, were able to see from our progress check data that last academic year, 100% students showed some level of measurable improvement through that data. So it's really beneficial for everyone for us to have that.
08:25
Sophia Magnanini
No. Yeah. That's awesome. Especially 100% of the students is something really great. And also the way you're talking about earlier, where you guys are doing it in a way where it's not like they're taking a test, so then it's kind of much more inviting, like they aren't getting as frustrated. It's something that they want to keep coming back and kind of working at, which is really awesome. And I also love when you're saying that they get to pick a book of choice. Is there anything like. Do you think I wanted to ask you why is choosing a book of their own important for developing lifelong readers?
09:02
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, this is a great question. So of course they have that book that they're reading with their tutor every week. Normally that's one that they're tutoring them. We'll kind of sit down together and look through what's appropriate for their level. We have them separated out by grade level and things like that. But the biggest part of self selection with our program, when our kids get to self select 3 take home books at the end of every session every week. And these, of course, the name implies, are for them to take home. They're theirs to keep forever. Of course, our program is entirely free, so they don't have to give us anything for it.
09:36
Avery Hobgood
And so by the end of an academic year, if a child has been with us for the full year, just depending on how many times they're site met, they've collected anywhere between 80 to 100 books in their personal library at home from Read Feed. It's really important to us to give our kids those books. Not just because we want to give them materials to practice with every week, because we can't, you know, just expect them to come every week, work on reading once, and then magically improve. We want to be sure that they have the materials at home to also continue looking through those book and working on those reading skills at home, but it's also just a opportunity to really give our kids some sort of agency over what books that they get to read through and things like that.
10:23
Avery Hobgood
Because a lot of our kids, or you'll hear a lot of people say like, oh, kids just aren't really interested in reading anymore nowadays, or kids will Say, I don't really like to read, but it's really just because they've never been given a book that actually identifies with their interests and what they want to learn about. So we love to give them that opportunity to self select those books every week so that they're choosing things that are interesting to them and that make them, you know, really love reading and have an interest in it. It's also a great opportunity because a lot of our students come from homes where English might not be the first language spoken at home. And so there might be literacy struggles outside of just the child, perhaps siblings or even in some cases, parents.
11:08
Avery Hobgood
And so it's again, a really great opportunity to be able to give them those three books every week that they get to take home and build that personal library to provide those materials to maybe other members of the family.
11:21
Sophia Magnanini
And also, it's really awesome. Yeah. That you kind of let them choose their own books and kind of form their own identity that they want in what their reading style is. And like you're saying, maybe they can give it to their family or give it to friends to kind of help spread that. And it's just really cool that once again, it's very, like, inviting something that makes the kids want to come back and learn and keep going at it, which is really important with keeping them on this path of yes, slowly greeting or slowly creating their learning. I wanted to kind of switch to the food aspect of it. Read and Feed combines literacy tutoring with nutritious meals. And why do you think addressing food insecurity is such an important part of supporting literacy?
12:12
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, this is a great question. A lot of people tend to get more caught up in the read part of the program and kind of forget about the feeding part. But we do think we're not just, you know, an organization that's focused on literacy. We're also focused on that food insecurity aspect as well. And it's mainly because we cannot expect our kids to focus or to improve a skill if they're distracted by hunger. And we also, of course, don't want our kids to have to face that distraction. So we are also addressing food and food insecurity with that snack that they have at the start of programming and that meal that it kind of depends based on our sites what meals look like.
12:56
Avery Hobgood
They can be family style at some sites, and some sites prefer something that the kids take home that's a little bit faster and just better suited for that site. That's how the food aspect comes into things. Just because really, we want to be sure that we're nourishing the whole child. We're not just expecting them to come in after, you know, a lot of cases a day of school, or maybe they're feeling a little bit restless or maybe a little bit hungry. Of course. And we can't just expect them to sit down and immediately dive into tutoring and give it their best shot when, you know, they're hungry. So we want to be sure that's not something our kids have to face when they're with us at Read and Feed.
13:36
Sophia Magnanini
Once again, I feel like, yeah, you guys are creating such a safe space and giving the kids all these different tools that they need to kind of be the best that they can, especially in the, like, situations of learning to read. Like you were saying, it's kind of hard, especially if they're coming from, like, a day of school. And then when it's younger kids, especially, they're gonna be a little bit more, like, antsy. And so that's really awesome and also awesome that you do the snack in the beginning and then also send home for later, because it's like, you never know what situation is. So it's, like, always just prepared. Do you guys work with kind of any local community organizations or food providers to help make the meals available?
14:19
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, we've got a lot of awesome partners who help to make our program run and work the way that it does. And one of our greatest partners is the Interfaith Food Shuttle in Raleigh. They're another great organization that's focused on addressing food insecurity in so many different ways, and they are actually who we get all of our meals from. So we have our volunteers actually come to our office Monday through Thursday. They pick up a cooler from us, they get a meal count for the day, and they head over to the Interfaith Food Shuttle in Raleigh and pick up all of those meals for us.
14:55
Avery Hobgood
And again, the meals can look a few different ways, but we're equipped to have them pick up any type of meal that we've got going on that day, and then they bring them back to us, and we get them out to all of our sites that evening. So the Interfaith Food Shuttle is awesome and has really helped us provide great meals to our students.
15:15
Sophia Magnanini
I love that especially. Yeah, just the working together. I've heard that with a lot of the different, like, nonprofits that I've interviewed that it really can't just be one person. It's a bunch of different people, a bunch of different groups coming in to help definitely give these people the most that they can. Because it is like not just one organization can solve a family's problems. So it's so awesome. When you hear working together, especially the Interfaith Food Shuttle is amazing. I've heard about them.
15:46
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, they're really great. Yeah. And we have a lot of other organizations as well who help to maybe run a snack drive for us and things like that. Like that. And help to support the snack side of things as well.
16:00
Sophia Magnanini
That's awesome. You're saying or. Well, we talked about a lot about like volunteers without kind of going into it. What does volunteer training or just volunteering in general kind of look like? And what qualities could make someone a great read and feed tutor?
16:16
Avery Hobgood
Yeah. So volunteering can look a few different ways. We've got four main roles that volunteers serve. So they'll work as a reading tutor can do that. Meal pickup and delivery. Like I mentioned from Interfaith Food Shuttle, we've got awesome office volunteers who help us support all the programs here from the office by getting materials ready, packing snack bags, sorting book donations, all sorts of things like that. And then we've also got our mobile classroom RV drivers. So we have a small fleet of RVs that we've actually converted into mobile classrooms. And we've got RVs that at some of our sites, our RVs go out directly to high knee neighborhoods and they set up programming right there so our kids literally walk out of their front door and come to read and feed tutoring for the week at the rv.
17:11
Avery Hobgood
So we've also got awesome volunteers who of course, after going through training, help to drive those RVs and get them out to our sites in Raleigh and Holly Springs. And here in Cary are our three RV space sites. So volunteer training. Every single one of our volunteers goes through a volunteer orientation, which is just a quick 30 minute virtual situation where we run you through the history of read and feed and our founding and all our mission, our values and things like that. And then we share all of the options for volunteering with everyone just so everyone's aware of what's out there for them. They're not comfortable tutoring or don't have the time to tutor right now. There are plenty of other things that they can do to help. So everyone goes through that orientation call.
17:58
Avery Hobgood
And then based on what they'd like to do after that, there are some different steps for training. So our tutors, of course, get a separate tutor training as well. It's again, virtual. It's about an hour and a half and it's with our awesome training and curriculum specialist, Mandy. Mandy was a second grade teacher in Wake County Public Schools for about 30 years. And then she was like, yay, I finally get to relax. And we decided, nope, you have to come help us here. So she's awesome. And she walks all of our tutors through training and that is really going over every possible thing they need to know about how a session runs, all of the materials that they'll use, just different general guidelines and things like that. So that we do the volunteer orientation and then we do the tutor training.
18:50
Avery Hobgood
And then of course, if someone is interested in driving one of our RVs, we have a separate training for that and make sure that they are completely comfortable doing that and that our fleet manager is completely comfortable with them driving it. And then also, of course, we've got some background checks that have to happen if you do decide to tutor and things like that. But I'd say the main qualities that make someone a great reading feed tutor is just someone who is excited about helping our students with their literacy challenges and someone who's willing to learn about how the program works. But really, you know, just as long as they're willing to learn and be patient with our students as they work through things, then they'd be a great tutor, I'm sure.
19:38
Avery Hobgood
But our tutors definitely don't have to have any sort of education background. Of course, that's super helpful when they do, but it's certainly not required. And I'd say the vast majority of our tutors do not have an education background.
19:51
Sophia Magnanini
That's awesome. Especially the many different parts that a tutor can take place. If they're not really too sure in one area, they can help in another area, which is really awesome. And also the rv. Yeah, the going to the neighborhoods is really cool. And I bet really helps a lot of the parents also, and the kids who maybe can't take their kids to the sites. But that's really cool and also really nice that it's like you kind of give them this process. So then it's also like making sure that everyone that is volunteering is doing it for the right reasons or is going to contribute a good part to the organization.
20:33
Avery Hobgood
Yeah. And I think it also helps just make sure that our volunteers feel totally comfortable going into things because we do have a lot of people who come in and maybe they're like, I have no education background. Like, I'm really nervous about things. We just want to make sure they feel completely equipped before, you know, having them Go sit down with a student so they, you know, just feel ready for things. So that's also a pro of having a more flesh out training process for people.
20:58
Sophia Magnanini
And I bet having the tutors and the volunteers feel more confident kind of helps add to this. Kids themselves feeling more confident.
21:06
Avery Hobgood
Yeah.
21:07
Sophia Magnanini
Which is really awesome. If you want to. How many sites do you guys have or different classes?
21:14
Avery Hobgood
So right now with our regular programming, we have 14 active sites and our sites, I forgot to mention, they look generally one of three different ways. So they're either meeting at our kids schools after they get off of school that day. They're meeting at a familiar sort of faith based location in the community that's offered us a space and that also does a lot of other work around in the surrounding area so that families and kids are familiar with them. Or we have those RV based sites that meet on our mobile classrooms. So we're always bringing our services to our kids so that again, they don't have to face a transportation barrier and you know, go out of their way. We want to be sure it's convenient and accessible to everyone. So yes, got 14 active sites across Wake county right now.
22:10
Sophia Magnanini
That's awesome because. Yeah, my next question was going to be how vital is your partnership with the Wake County Public school system and how do you guys collaborate with schools to identify students who possibly need support? Or is it more of a this families come to you guys or.
22:25
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, so we absolutely rely on our partnership with Wake County Public Schools. It's super essential to our program because we love that there are plenty of awesome readers in the county. But we want to be sure that we're reaching the students who really need that extra bit of support with our services. And the best way to do that is by being a partner of the school system and having the ability to have the teachers and the social workers who know these kids, know their needs and know, you know, their general situations so that we can really be having the students referred to us for the best possible fit for our program. So we work in that partnership to have teachers refer kids to us.
23:11
Avery Hobgood
They fill out a sheet that tells us there are needs and you know, sort of where they're at so we can gauge our, their sort of starting point within our program. But we really rely on that partnership with Wake County Public Schools to get our students and make sure we're getting the students who are the best fit for what we're offering.
23:30
Sophia Magnanini
Since you were saying that a lot of the times you guys are coming to the Schools to meet. And so it's really cool to see, yeah, the partnerships once again, where it's not just one group, it's multiple different groups helping one another to make sure that the. These kids can get the best out of this situation. Really amazing. What are some of the biggest challenges faced by the students you serve and how does read and feed work to overcome them? Or have you noticed any changes in trends of literacy since like the pandemic or something like that?
24:04
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, I'd say both parts of the question are very connected because of course every kid is different. They all face a different set of challenges. And you know, challenges might shift depending on what. But just generally the student and so, but I would say we are and have been seeing still the effects of COVID learning loss and having during the pandemic kids, you know, get really foundational years of their education in a, you know, have it completely disruptive and, you know, obviously very untraditionally laid out.
24:45
Avery Hobgood
So actually coming out of COVID our program, since we're partnered with Wake county public school elementary schools, of course we serve K through 5th grade, but especially after coming out of COVID we decided to have an emphasis on first, second and third grade because as students approach the end of the third grade, the urgency to get them reading on grade level really increases. Because there's a lot of research that's come out, even especially after Covid, to show that whether or not a child is reading on grade level by the end of the third grade is really connected and indicative to their future academic success and high school graduation rates and all things like that.
25:29
Avery Hobgood
Especially after coming out of COVID seeing Covid learning loss, seeing kids just feeling so behind and because they missed those foundational years, that really helped get them on track to with their reading. We decided to focus on first, second and third grade to try and make sure that we can get our third graders reading on grade level. But of course we still serve fourth, fifth and second semester kindergarteners. But yeah, I would definitely say one of the biggest challenges our kids face is just because we're serving kids who already have those literacy challenges, just getting behind and being behind from those foundational years and then, you know, just really needing that extra support, especially that one one support with the tutor. So there's that.
26:20
Avery Hobgood
And then also in some cases our kids, a good number of our kids can use some extra economic support as well. And so we try to help out as we can with that with the meals aspect of things, making sure that our kids and Their families or our kids have a meal that their families don't have to worry about at least one night a week.
26:43
Sophia Magnanini
Because they're really interesting too to hear about the scientific, more aspect about it where it's like the first grade through third grade. And so it's really nice to see that you guys are focusing on that and using that, those that information to kind of make sure that these kids will be prepared for the future and that they can have the best possible outcomes. And it's also just really important that you guys are providing both economic help as well as educational because even though both are very important in themselves, it's really awesome that you guys are doing those things together and really trying to make sure that these kids are being set up for success.
27:29
Sophia Magnanini
As we kind of come up towards the end of our chat, for people who are listening and who want to support, read and feed, what are the best ways to get involved? Volunteering, donations, advocacy. And also are there any upcoming events, drives or initiatives that our listeners should know about?
27:48
Avery Hobgood
Yeah, so I would say the best way to get involved with us is of course through volunteering. And of course we're always looking for reading tutors, our biggest needs. As we strive to have a one one model at all of our sites. We of course have to have the number of tutors equal to students to make that happen. So we are always looking for volunteers. You can visit our website@just readandfeed.org and figure out how to get involved there by clicking on our volunteer tab. So volunteering is a great option. Of course we're always extremely grateful for any sort of financial support that people are willing to give. And actually right now, as we're approaching the end of the year and it's sort of fundraising season, we actually are able to match any financial donations that are given right now dollar for dollar.
28:42
Avery Hobgood
So it's a really great time to double your financial impact. Book drives and healthy snack drives are always something that we're looking to have hosted by really any sort of group can hold a drive, whether it's at school or work. People hold them within their neighborhoods, their book clubs, student clubs. Really any group can hold a book drive or a healthy snack drive. They're very easy to set up and can always be arranged by emailing infoadinfeed.org and they're a pretty low impact thing to in terms of effort to a lot of impact for us, but to arrange. So I'd say those are the main things that are always super helpful. And of course, just word of mouth, and this is a great tool for that, of course.
29:38
Avery Hobgood
But spreading the word about who we are and what we do is always really helpful as well.
29:44
Sophia Magnanini
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me about the amazing organization that Read and Feed is. You guys are doing just amazing things and probably are helping so many children and families kind of have less of a burden and also have a greater chance at a good future, which is just awesome.
30:08
Avery Hobgood
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having us. We were glad to be able to chat with you and share a little bit about us.
30:15
Sophia Magnanini
Thank you so much. So, as we come up on the end of our episode, I just want to thank Avery so much for coming in and talking to me about everything that Read Feed does. It's an amazing organization, and I think you guys should all go check it out. Maybe go see if you can volunteer, See if you can host some drives. I know I might. So, yeah, let's just get on to it. But thank you all for listening to Oak City Move once again. I'm your host, Sophia Magnanini, and if you're interested in listening to this episode again or to past episodes of the show, you can go to wknc.org podcasts. Make sure to tune in to our show every other Monday on WKNC, 88.1 FM Raleigh. Have a great day. All. Right, Sam.
