In the first hour of the school day last week, Patti Holm sat with a energetic first grader at a small table next to a classroom door at Ruder Elementary. She listened to the girl read two picture books, helping her along if she didn’t know a word.

Holm is a retired teacher and a volunteer tutor at the school. This year, she started helping in her granddaughter’s class once a week.

Columbia Falls Ruder and Glacier Gateway elementary schools are looking for volunteers to tutor students in reading and math for at least 30 minutes a day. Volunteers receive training and strategies to help the children. Some come in the morning and others stop during lunch once or twice a week.

The schools need tutors to help improve reading skills, which greatly affect the academic outcome for students and their personal success as they reach adulthood. Helping children at an early age makes each successive grade level easier and helps keep them in school, educators say.

Betsy Kohnstamm has been the reading specialist and volunteer coordinator at Ruder for nine years. Madisen Cross is the new reading specialist at Glacier Gateway this school year and in the process of organizing the volunteer program.

This school year two of her elderly volunteers grew too old to be able to continue tutoring. The program is sitting at about eight volunteers and it needs at least 10 more. The teachers would use them if they were available, Kohnstamm said.

Volunteers come for many reasons and from many stages in life. Such as a Hispanic woman, who doesn’t speak any English, but comes in to get to know her son’s school and gets the benefit of reading stories with the children to help her learn English.

Another is a local attorney who has volunteered for three years since her children are grown up. Many are retired and miss being in the life of a child. Some are mothers who want to find out what’s happening at school so they help in their child’s classroom.

Holm finished her career in teaching at Ruder, but had taught from kindergarten to eighth grade for many years around the country. She’s always been an education advocate, but she thinks it was her granddaughter who finally brought her back into the schools.

Kohnstamm remembers years ago when the schools had more volunteers. The reading specialist had a separate room with a couch for reading. Now, both schools are very crowded and volunteers often have to work with students in the hallway.

She said that not having a room for the tutors is one of the challenges. However, teachers also use them within the classroom. For example, volunteers sometimes will meet with every student in the class to test their counting skills or go over a reading strategy.

People who have extra time on their hands can also become a foster grandparent. This Agency on Aging program is an opportunity for those older than 55 years to work at least 15 hours a week at the schools and other locations.

There are a more requirements for the Foster Grandparent Program than simply volunteering, but they receive a modest tax-free stipend. For more information on the program call director Micky Snyder at 883-7284, ext. 18.

To get involved as a volunteer in the elementary schools, call Ruder at 892-6570 or Glacier Gateway at 892-6540.