Our October Mentor of the Month is Karla Walsh. Karla is a mentor to a 4th grade student, Amaria, at Walnut Street School. This is Karla’s fourth year with Everybody Wins! Iowa, and her third year reading with Amaria.
Karla works with social media for Better Homes and Gardens at Meredith Corporation during the day, but each Wednesday over her lunch hour, she comes to read with Amaria.
“It’s a really simple thing to do, just spend 45 minutes once a week reading with Amaria,” Karla said. “It’s a lot of fun! I get to hear about her dance classes too, and her schoolwork. So, it’s great.”
Amaria’s favorite kind of books are princess books. She said that she probably read more than 100 of them over the summer!
“Every other book we read a princess book, and then in between those we read something that’s a little bit different,” Karla said.
Some of Amaria’s favorite non-princess books are “A Crooked Kind of Perfect” by Linda Urban and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” by Ian Fleming.
When asked about how her reading skills have improved since starting to read with Karla, Amaria said that she is much more confident. She also reads a lot more at home during her breaks from school. Karla also said that Amaria has become much more outgoing.
Karla will continue to be a mentor to Amaria until she ages out of the program at the end of next year. The two have undoubtedly built a very meaningful relationship with one another.
Thank you for everything you do, Karla!