By: Summer Kelley, Staff Reporter

When it comes to mentoring the learning can go both ways, especially when you have middle school students teamed up with elementary students.

The idea began with Sandy Bradley, school improvement specialist at Dade Elementary School. Bradley contacted Dade Middle School language arts teachers Matt Jelley and Thomas Randolph and asked if they would help partner eighth graders with the fifth graders to help the younger students prepare for their writing assessment test that will be taken in March.

The contact between the two schools led to three days of writing practice in the Dade Middle School lunchroom. From 9 until 10:45 a.m. last Thursday and Friday, with another session that was scheduled for this week, the fifth graders received one on one, and in some cases two to one, instruction in the art of essay writing. 

On a visit to the lunchroom Friday morning it was clear that both sets of students were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

“It’s a good thing,” said eighth grade student Baylee Weathers.

“It’s fun,” said fifth grade student Breanna Fowler.

Why would you partner fifth graders with eighth graders to practice writing essays?

Well, according to Randolph and Jelley there are several reasons. One reason is that the eighth graders wrote 21 essays since the beginning of the year in order to prepare for the state writing assessment that they have recently taken. 

Another reason is that mentoring reinforces the writing skills the students have learned and allows the eighth graders to pass those skills on to the younger students.

But the main reason for partnering with Dade Middle School is that the eighth grade ranked first in the state in writing assessment scores last year, an accomplishment Jelley and Randolph are hoping to achieve this year as well.

It seems, too, that the students have also recognized the benefits of mentoring.

“It gives me more experience and gives me more of what I will learn in college,” said eighth grader Trina McBryar.  “I am going to be a teacher and this has given me hands on experience. It also helps give the fifth graders an idea of what eighth grade will be like.”

The mentoring has been so successful that Randolph and Jelley would like to include Davis Elementary students in the writing mentoring and possibly start a math mentoring program that might include seventh graders as well.