It is exciting that low-income students tutored by older mentors made 60 percent more progress in reading and comprehension than those without tutors, according to recent study. What was really unexpected, though, as reported in an AP story, was that a separate study found that the tutoring helped the brain function and health of the older volunteer tutors, as well.
“They help me as much as I help them,” Rosetta Handy, 73, told an AP reporter about the second-graders in a West Baltimore school she helps. “They give you energy. You learn psychology all over again.”
Handy is one of about 2,000 older volunteer mentors working in 22 cities across the country with about 20,000 students in the Experience Corps. The program, which began in 1995, trains people over 55 to work with low-income elementary school students. Handy volunteers in Baltimore, which was one of three Experience Corps cities that was the subject of a two-year, $2 million study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis involving nearly 900 second and third grade students. That study concluded that students with tutoring help progressed almost two-thirds more than their counterparts who had no assistance.
But the other good news is that a separate, small study by Washington University and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore suggested that tutoring young children in math and reading might delay or reverse aging of the brain. There has already been evidence that shows mental exercise such as brain games or crossword puzzles can slow aging in brains, but this study showed that older tutors had improved brain function, better health, increased strength, higher activity, less isolation, and higher quality of life because of their community service work.
The Experience Corps tutors in Baltimore work about 15 hours a week and earn an annual stipend of $2,800 but perhaps the real reward is the youth-rejuvenating properties of their volunteer service.
Photo courtesy of Experience Corps.