Photos: St. John Lutheran's student reading mentor program

The program began earlier this year

(AURORA, Ind.) – Seventh and eighth graders and St. John Lutheran School in Aurora are helping out the underclassmen. 

The students read stories to first graders once a month in an effort to develop a love of reading.

It was created by teacher Sarah Sharp who received a grant from the Dearborn County Retired Teachers Foundation to purchase the Mentor Text Project.

The goal of the project is to foster an atmosphere of love for reading and a solid grounding in language skills through one-on-one mentoring.

“So far her 7th and 8th graders have reinforced literary building blocks such as sentence structures, punctuation, word choice, and parts of speech.

The younger students are developing a love of reading as they see their mentors display excitement and interest in the stories they are sharing,” the foundation said. 

The older students get a sense of accomplishment through mentoring while the first graders look forward to time spent with them. 

“They anticipate mentoring through the rest of this year and they’re hoping this becomes a tradition in their school,” Sharp said.

Here are more photos provided by Sarah Sharp: