Read about the ways you can promote mentoring and thank your mentor this week.

This article shows how important it is to open new paths to reach and inspire young people to 21st century jobs and careers.

Interventions to Support Readiness, Recruitment, Access, Transition, and Retention for Postsecondary Education Success:
An Equity of Opportunity Policy and Practice Analysis

Evidence and research has shown that adults tend to have a need to integrate new ideas with what they already know. Adults learn best from the sharing of common experiences with other fellow adults. Barriers that often deter adults from mentoring or developing nurturing roles can be overcome in situations where mutual experiences, interests and knowledge are shared with colleagues, thus, a way of connecting with new people. Solutions to common problems dealing with troubled youth which adult mentors face in the adult-mentee relationships can be mutually dealt with. Training derived primarily from the brainstorming of experiences will help adult mentors to boost their confidence levels and abilities in building self-esteem in troubled youths. The goal is to create sharing relationships that are based on trust and role modeling of positive values. Breaking down adults into small groups for interaction to elicit more sincere responses to concepts dealing with troubled youth will provide "experienced focused training" for adults from all walks of life. Practical guidelines to stimulate and provoke thought in the areas of self-esteem building, problem solving and goal setting can be discussed and evaluated. Adult mentors will be able to recognize, maximize and enhance the strengths of troubled teens through the development of proper mental attitudes and systematic procedures for dealing with troubled youth who are going through the struggles of adolescence. Training adult mentors to recognize and maximize the strengths of troubled teens through an organization wide unifying system of communication for developing rapport, creating attainable goals and motivating at-risk youth should be the goal of any mentoring organization. Mentor training should provide a proven system for generating troubled teens with self-esteem building skills, concepts, ideas, strategies and problem solving skills. While training adults to recognize and help troubled youths to overcome limitations in the adult-troubled teen mentor relationships. Though mentor training is comprehensive in nature, the training should not be presented as an exhaustive review of mentoring. The message is clearly stated regarding the need for the development of important relationships for these youths with adults who can help them energize their inner resources to meet the challenges of life today. Within the training suggestions, thoughts and experience to help facilitate the forging of such relationships should be created. Mentor training should also be an interactive process to stimulate, provoke thought and guide anyone in improving or developing mentoring skills and work well in training individuals individually or best in group workshop situations. How often do you hear someone asking "I wish I knew how to motivate my troubled son or daughter." Here's a proven system to develop mentoring skills for dealing with troubled youth for those who never thought they could. Therlon Harris developed Motivational Mentoring 101. Therlon is a former basic education teacher of incarcerated adolescent male offenders. His leadership and 30 years of experience has allowed him to stay on the cutting edge of practices in education, business and community. Experienced in job coaching and job development for ex-offenders, Therlon has mentored many youthful and adult offenders into socially accepted careers. Therlon holds both B.S. & M.S. Degrees from the University of Michigan. He has long-term experiences in a variety of academic disciplines and has served as consultant for non-profit service organizations serving at-risk students. He has acted as presenter of innovative human services programs to local, state and national audiences. In addition, Therlon has served as a youth mentor, family worker, drug abuse educator and role model for a variety of private agencies. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Therlon_G._Harris

Finding the Right Fit

Maria Murphy

We all know the research.  Reading is important.  But sometimes getting a child or teen hooked seems like an impossible task.  One of the biggest struggles with high-risk kids is when their reading levels don’t coincide with their developmental levels.  I mean, your sixth grade student reading on a third grade level will probably not be happy with Magic Tree House books.  Yet, here is the quandary.  How do we get better at reading?  Repetition.  We just have to do it over and over.  Here are some quick and easy tools to use with your student to light their fire for reading.

1.       Start with interests.  What are they passionate about?  Sports?  Movies?  Art?  Find a common thread of interest.

2.       Use pictures.  When we are first learning to read, we are encouraged to look at the pictures to get clues as to what is happening. There are plenty of age appropriate picture books that can help struggling readers put together the pieces while they are building their reading skills. Here are just a few.

a.       Go Mag.  Forget traditional books.  What about Sports Illustrated for Kids?  American Girl Magazine?  Okay, Teen People.  It’s still reading!

b.      Graphic novels are cool.  They really are.  They combine incredible art and manageable dialogue. 

c.       “The Making of…..”  These books are great for kids struggling.  When they look at books describing the making of certain movies, the pictures give clues as well as seeing the movie.

3.       Pull them up.  Forget their reading level for a minute and look at their cognitive and developmental levels.  My son was limping along with his reading until I introduced him to chapter books.  Even though he couldn’t read them, he started reading the name of each chapter.  Then, the first page of each chapter.  He is still working that reading muscle and can do an entire chapter on his own now.  What was missing?  He needed to read on his cognitive level.  Inch them along with an age appropriate book that you read together.  Remember the power of reading aloud to a child.  It teaches them everything from the rhythm of reading to proper pronunciation.

4.       Tag team.  Consider getting two copies of a book you are reading together. Your student can follow you while you are reading and you can do the same.  A great way to help them along.

We Want To Know:  What are your favorite mentoring tips for helping your student improve their reading?

Click here to share.

Maria Murphy is a therapist, writer and speaker.  Learn more about her at www.simplyputtogether.com.