Volunteer Trainings

Storytelling & Bookmaking Field Trip Training
The Storytelling & Bookmaking field trip is engaging and multifaceted, requiring volunteers to act, write, and mentor. This morning-long intensive with a class of children sparks not only their creativity—leading them to design an original story—but yours. The Storytelling & Bookmaking Field Trip Training gives volunteers the tools needed to engage students of all levels in writing a story and creating a book while taking volunteers through all the roles they may play:

"Grumpy editor" - an invisible but vocal character that dictates orders and demands progress, to keep the ideas flowing.
Group leader - motivates and guides the students as they create their stories.
Project support - types, formats, photocopies, and binds, taking the books from A-Z.

Reading Strategies & ELL
Mentoring English Language Learners or students in our Reading Strategies program is often one of the most challenging tasks faced by volunteer tutors, which is why these volunteers are trained by education professionals.826 brings in college professors and elementary school teachers to highlight some of the struggles students face while reading, and to discuss tutoring strategies that compliment the most commonly taught, proven reading techniques. We also hold several specific training sessions for English Language Learners mentors, specialized to meet the more complex needs of those students who are learning English as a second language.

College Essay Training
At College Essay Training, our volunteers benefit from the experience and expertise of college admissions directors who have dedicated their lives to reading and selecting essays. Besides intensive in-person instruction, the volunteers receive a packet that they can rely on when tutoring. This includes links to sample essay questions, tips for choosing a topic, how to work a cliché idea into a genuine essay, popular topics, and sample essays (both the good and the bad). Volunteers leave training ready armed with the tools to help high school students face the most intimidating essay they've ever written.

Book Project Training
If there's one thing we know at 826, it's how difficult it can be to produce a book. We’ve been through it all and now dedicate a session to passing on the skills and experience to our dedicated volunteers. From what direction to get students to work in, what to do with questionable material that students write, to tips for working one-on-one with a student, volunteers learn the ins and outs of how to volunteer on an 826 book project.

After School Tutoring Training
We believe the best method of tutoring is a one-on-one approach, so at our After-School Tutoring Training we prepare our volunteers to work with students individually. Training is exhaustive and will take you from understanding where you'll fit best as a tutor, to what your job entails, some straightforward teaching techniques, and what we expect of our tutors. We help tutors learn the best practices for keeping students engaged, tackling tough assignments, getting homework finished, and forging individual bonds between volunteer and student.

Workshop Teacher Training
During this session, potential workshop instructors are asked to bring in their ideas and a rough draft of their curriculum for an 826 workshop. Our training aims to combat the obstacles of creating lesson plans, and to instill volunteers with the confidence to stand in front of a class and teach. We invite our volunteers to develop new workshops, and will help you refine class schedules and goals, rework rough drafts of lesson plans, and give you some general tips for teaching one of our workshops.

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