Story shared by Volunteer Coach, Tia Lockhart

I volunteered with the Strong Start program through Nipissing University in Brantford.  I am in the concurrent education program for the junior/intermediate level and decided that Strong Start training would be good practice for my teaching career.  I was placed at Graham-Bell Victoria School with a SK student who needed help with the letters strand. In the beginning, he struggled with most of the letters from the alphabet.

Every week we worked hard together to remember the letters of the alphabet through Strong Start’s fun games and activities. There were times when my student became frustrated, but with encouragement he pushed forward and refused to give up. By the end of the 10-weeks he knew all of the letters. When I walked him back to his classroom he marched right up to his teacher and declared proudly, “I know the whole alphabet!” His teacher was thrilled and it was a very rewarding moment for me.