In a corner of Southeast San Diego where 92% of students are economically disadvantaged and just 39% read at grade level, a small church-based tutoring program has rolled up its sleeves to make a difference.
“We’re just community members,” said Pastor Robert Pope of Encanto Southern Baptist Church. “But we are seeing the broader call for the community to step in and fill this gap,” Pastor Pope said.
Poverty, language barriers and underfunded schools contribute to a growing literacy crisis nationwide, and in San Diego. Compelled to take action after observing widening education disparities post-pandemic, the Encanto Village Tutoring Program is working to close the education gap in one of San Diego’s most underserved communities.
Uncovering the need
Children’s literacy rates are dropping, and the broader public school system is often stretched too thin to address the full scale of the unfolding crisis.
According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, only 30% of all fourth graders nationwide scored proficient in reading. For Black students, the problem is even more apparent, with only 17% of Black fourth graders scoring proficient.
“This is a reading crisis. It’s not just our neighborhood, but it’s even more exacerbated in our neighborhood,” said Pastor Pope.
According to the State of Literacy in San Diego report, data highlights a significant literacy divide in the county. Students in affluent northern San Diego neighborhoods significantly outperform their peers in southern communities in the county. In Rancho Santa Fe, Carmel Valley, and Fairbanks Ranch, over 80% of students meet reading standards, compared to just 25% in Southeastern San Diego, 36% in Encanto and San Ysidro.
The data tells the story that many southeastern residents have known all along.
“The south of the 8 feels like a demarcation line,” said Sandra Hall, one of the volunteers for the Encanto Village Tutoring program.
Called to do something, Hall, along with other community members, including Delia Price, began putting the idea for Encanto Village Tutoring into action.
Filling the gap
The group started by sending letters to public schools in the Southeastern region offering help. One school had accepted the call: Encanto Elementary.
“We went in with three volunteers into Encanto Elementary, and we just basically showed up and said, ‘What is it that you all need?” said Hall.
The big need was reading instruction.
The school helped identify the lowest performing students, most of them immigrant children, who had transferred to the school and hardly knew English.
South San Diego schools like Encanto Elementary often have classrooms filled with students who speak two or three languages, but many still haven’t mastered the basics of reading in English.
“For kids in the fourth grade, that teacher is teaching fourth graders. If an immigrant comes in and their English language level is at second grade, they don’t have the time to go and sit with that kid and go one-on-one,” said Hall.
With a staff of about 20 teachers, most classrooms maintain a ratio of roughly 20 students per teacher, often without the support of an aide, according to volunteers.
Recognizing how easily students could slip through the cracks, the group launched its program with just ten children in its first year, prioritizing a personalized approach to meet needs that weren’t being addressed in the classroom or at home.
“You can’t just focus on education; you have to look at the whole picture. What’s going on in the home? Do they have their needs met? Things like that,” said Price regarding their approach.
‘We’re just community members’
Although confident in their ability to read, the tutors admit that at first, they didn’t know much about teaching literacy. As a result, the volunteers taught themselves best practices for working with struggling students. They scoured the internet, read articles and attended presentations from groups like the San Diego Council on Literacy.
The Science of Reading, an evidence-based literacy resource published by the National Center on Improving Literacy, soon became the foundation for how the tutors approach the program. The method emphasizes phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, decoding and comprehension.
“That became our foundation,” Hall said. “We found the gap, started there, and built our students up by exposure to worksheets, reading aloud, listening to English and gradually expanding their vocabulary.
Call to action
Now in its fourth year, the program has been a proven success, with students consistently receiving recognition from their schools and achieving higher reading levels.
In addition to higher scores, another indicator of the program’s success is seeing how it helps students gain their confidence and interest in learning, the tutors say.
“As you build a relationship, the student trusts you, they feel safe, and they have less barriers to their learning. They feel readier to learn,” said Hall.
While program outcomes have been fruitful, the group recognizes that the need in the Encanto and Southeastern communities stretches far beyond their capacity.
With the school season approaching, Pastor Pope, along with Hall and Price, all emphasized how their program needs more volunteers and funding to be able to provide tutors with a stipend.
“This is a reading crisis,” said Pope. “We accepted the challenge, not to replace any educator, but to answer a broader call for the community to step in and fill this gap. It is absolutely possible for a regular person, someone with time, energy, and a willingness to learn, to make a real difference.”
If you are or know anyone interested in helping with the efforts of the Encanto Village Tutoring Program, reach out to Sandra Hall, email: hallsan@yahoo.com or Delia Price, email: dlmorr1@aol.com.
