Spencer Kids Group helping students ‘catch up’ after COVID

It has been a rough few years for the Spencer Kids Group (SKG), but as they enter their 26th year of operations out of their building at 117 E Clark St. in Spencer, things are beginning to look up. The group has been working hard to catch students up on learning skills they need for school and reestablish connections with children of all ages during its after-school program.

For four days of the week, the SKG holds its SHIP (Spencer Homework Improvement Program) for students from grades K-6. According to SKG director Erica Schober, the program’s purpose is to reinforce lessons the students are being taught in school and to improve skills that they will need throughout their lives.

“First we let them know what assignments they need to work on, they have books and a school folder that tells them what they should be working on,” she said. “Some kids don’t get homework, though, so when they don’t have homework we focus on having them read, learn math, spelling words, how to tell time and how to count money.”

The SHIP program begins its work every fall after the students receive their first progress reports in October. From there, instructors are able to determine areas of need in each child’s education and focus on tutoring them in those areas for about an hour after school from Monday to Thursday.

“This is an after-school program,” said Schober. “It starts in October after they receive their first progress reports ... we’re trying to get everyone caught back up. We are having them work on sight words, working with kids in the same grades. Practicing spelling together and doing spelling tests.”

Catching up has been an important aspect of this year’s program. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Schober said the SKG had limited its hours of operation to try to help the nearby Spencer School District keep case numbers low. But while the students’ health was important, student performance suffered overall.

“When these kids first went home, there were not a lot of struggles. Now there are more struggles,” she said. “When they went online, there were some things they were not able to focus on, like reading. We are still in the process of rebuilding, but I feel like we are making progress again.”

Part of what has helped the students in SHIP along has been the cooperation between students from different grade levels. With 30 kids a part of the program this year, Schober said there are plenty of opportunities for students to form friendships and interact with children a little older than they are, which is a big help for students who struggle with their homework.

“We find that a lot of big kids like to help the little kids and the little kids like the one-on-one attention,” she said. “I think that the younger kids really look up to the older kids. They build a lot of friendships that they wouldn’t have in school because they are not together, for example a kindergartener will become friends with a sixth grader. They are really making friends at different grade levels.” When the program ends in the second week of May, Schober said she is hopeful that the students who attend the SKG SHIP program will be far better off than they were before. Depending on where students end up at the end of the year, she said she has been considering offering a program during the month of August to further sharpen the skills they have learned and prepare them for school in the fall.

“We have been seeing some struggling kids, so it’s about getting them back to where they should be,” she said. “We have been looking into some summer teaching as well if they need further help. We will see how they do with their report cards before we make that decision.”

In between that time, Schober said the SKG will be holding some of its annual fundraisers to help cover the costs of running the SKG and its SHIP program, including its annual Spring Fever Dance on April 2. Since the programs SKG offers are free to all children, she said the fundraisers they do are very important in helping keep SKG going.

“SKG was started to give kids a safe place to go to practice their academics,” she said. “We do a lot of work in the community, and if we didn’t have the community supporting us during our fundraisers, we wouldn’t be here.”

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Spencer children work together in a recent Spencer Homework Improvement Program (SHIP) time at the Spencer Kids Group.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO