Success Story: Martha & Suzanne

Category: News
Read Time: 3 mins

Our October Success Story (also featured in our e-mail newsletter) celebrates the progress of the Read Together pair of tutor Martha Simpson and learner Suzanne.

Martha and Suzanne square

The two started working together in April, and in Martha’s words, “A better match between two people cannot be found!” Suzanne, an 8th grade ELL student who moved to Brunswick with her family in 2021, could converse in English but has had trouble with reading and grammar. “Tutoring has been helpful to me because we work on things I mostly have trouble with and things I want to learn also,” said Suzanne. “We read, talk about science, new topics, news and much more. I like the tutoring sessions because you have one person that teaches you anything you want to know. They can work with things you’re having trouble with. Not just that, but we can do lots of fun things that usually contain learning, math, science and reading.”

Meeting with Martha twice a week at the Welcome Center at Brunswick Landing, Suzanne not only works on her reading, writing, and grammar, but the two have also begun doing research and science experiments together. “She would like to be a scientist when she gets older. Her curiosity has no boundaries,” said Martha. “Suzanne has gained so much confidence in a few short months, and will be able to carry all of this over to have greater success as she navigates 8th grade. Tutoring has given her the needed supports to be successful at a young age.” And Suzanne is glad to keep working with Martha as her knowledge of English grows. “Martha is very kind, funny, and responsible. She's the complete opposite of me, but we have lots of things in common,” said Suzanne. “Midcoast Literacy is really kind to get each one of us a tutor to help us gain more skills and help us with other things as well.”

Congratulations to Suzanne and Martha for their progress this year and for setting a wonderful example that sometimes effective tutoring involves more than just reading and writing. And keep following us for more success stories from our tutors throughout the year!