New Haven Reads Again — Electronically

New Haven Reads tutor John Horkel and tutee Elio watched the grey circle in the corner of Elio’s Google Chrome screen spin. When the login page to children’s book website Epic! finally loaded, Elio froze — and then vanished from the Zoom video conference.

It was Thursday of New Haven Reads’ first week back since the Covid-19 shutdown began. The literacy nonprofit has spent weeks calling parents and readying the software to hold their weekly tutoring sessions electronically.

Like New Haven Public Schools, New Haven Reads has found uneven levels of technology in student homes.

Horkel tutored another student this week. He said that the session was smooth and that they had none of the issues Elio was experiencing.

“I feel really sad, because he’s one of the most motivated young kids I have. When you chat with him, it’s like you’re chatting to a person who is much older,” Horkel said.

When Elio and Horkel reconnected, they decided to ditch the software they had planned to use. The Conte West Hills Magnet School third grader picked out a book in his house, Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years of being a kid, it’s that you have zero control over your own life,” Elio read.

The sentence began a story about being a reluctant participant in a summer road trip. It was relevant to Elio’s life too — stuck at home with Covid-related school closures and dealing with technology that would not seem to obey his commands.

New Haven Reads takes kids who read below grade level and teaches them to enjoy reading and grow their reading skills. This mission is particularly important during the coronavirus pandemic, Executive Director Kirsten Levinsohn said.

“We became so incredibly worried about what would happen. We thought they would lose so much, effectively starting summer slide in March. The kids couldn’t afford to do that,” Levinsohn said.

So New Haven Reads staff researched how to translate what worked in person securely onto a computer screen. Lexia, the software they use to teach children how to sound out words, is already online. They found Epic! as a replacement for the libraries at New Haven Reads sites. And they decided to switch from the print workbooks they rely on to supporting students with homework, since many students are feeling overwhelmed with schoolwork, Levinsohn said.

At the end of February, 386 volunteers were meeting weekly with 573 students through New Haven Reads. Levinsohn reported that around 50 percent of those students have signed up for the distance tutoring sessions. She said that she expects that number to grow as families learn how to send their children to school virtually.

“When kids started doing school work, that was a lot for parents to take on. They weren’t ready to start this too,” Levinsohn said.

Levinsohn said that nearly every family has some kind of computer, thanks to public school efforts to fill in technology gaps by distributing Chromebooks. However, families with multiple children often only have one laptop, which makes it difficult to do homework or join a tutoring session, Levinsohn said.

New Haven Reads is working to find additional laptops with fellow Elm City nonprofit, Concepts for Adaptive Learning. They also hope to find tablets for kindergarten and preschool children to help them keep learning letters for 20 minutes a day.

Levinsohn has said that the nonprofit is worried about funding during the Covid shutdown and recession. However, the nonprofit has not laid off any staff members and has applied for a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan.

“A lot of things have changed with Covid-19, but one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to the kids,” Levinsohn said. ​“Our kids need us more than ever now.”

And the nonprofit has a track record of success. Every student showed growth in their reading skills in last year’s assessments. Over 70 percent improved at least one grade level in independent reading, and 27 percent improved by two or more grade levels, according to Education Director Hayley Herrington.

The relationships between tutors and tutees are key to that success, Herrington said. She said that every site director spoke about seeing students smiling and nudging siblings into the camera to say hello.

Elio said the tutors are why he likes the sessions.

“I like it because I can express my feelings when I’m with my tutors,” he said, before Horkel logged on.

Elio read three pages of Diary of a Wimpy Kid without any help from Horkel. Then he ran into ​“postponing.”

“We ended up pos — pos,” Elio read.

“Sound it out,” Horkel encouraged.

“Postponing,” Elio finished, the second half of the word hard to hear.

After reading for a few more minutes, Elio and Horkel reached what New Haven Reads calls ​“choice time.” Elio asked Horkel whether he had learned how to use the whiteboard function of Zoom. Horkel laughed and said that he had, per Elio’s instructions.

Elio drew up a tic-tac-toe board as Horkel commented that they would normally be playing chess. Elio said that he has been learning how to play Chinese checkers and checkers in his free time while out of school.

“He’s a wicked chess player. He’s going to teach me Chinese checkers,” Horkel said.

Elio then announced that he was going to draw a chess board. Undeterred by Horkel’s doubts that this was not possible, Elio created a grid (pictured below) so they could at least play checkers. He said that they could move their ​“pieces” by drawing a dot where they wanted to move and erasing their previous dot.

After they had each moved once, they got distracted by the icons they could add to the whiteboard and then time was up.

Elio recapped with Horkel and the Bristol Street site staff about when his next session was and prepared to sign off. Bristol Street Site Director Aimee Curtis-Travaglini said that she has written down all of the technical difficulties in the call.

Everyone waved and no one left the Zoom session.

“Bye. Bye. Bye 500 times,” Elio joked.