The program is set-up to allow volunteers to choose the amount of time they wish to contribute.
The minimum time commitment for a Volunteer Coach is 30 minutes/week for 10 weeks, plus 4 hours of training the first time you volunteer. Most volunteers, however, choose to spend more time.
- Each new volunteer attends two training sessions (total of 4 hours) and is given a detailed manual. Training is needed only once. Volunteer Coaches who have worked in one 10-week session, do not need to attend training again when they return to work in another 10-week session.
The Letters, Sounds and Words program has four strands: “letters”, “sounds”, “words” and “building words”. Children work in three strands at a time. The staff at the site select the three strands most needed by the child. Each strand has 10 sessions and all the strands operate at the same time. Each session is 30 minutes. The program is set up so that three different Volunteer Coaches can be working with the same child each week. Each Volunteer Coach would work with a different strand of the program. This means that the child actually has three sessions per week for 10 weeks.
A Volunteer Coach works with the same child(ren) for all 10 sessions.
Volunteer Coaches have the option of:
- Working with one child on one strand for 10 weeks.
- time commitment = 30 minutes per week for 10 weeks
- Working with more than one child using the same strand. In this situation the volunteer coaches for an hour or more on a given day and works with a different child every half hour, using the same activities.
- time commitment = one hour (or more) per week for 10 weeks
- Working with the one child on two (e.g. Letters and Sounds) or three (e.g. Sounds, Words and Building Words) different strands of the program.
- time commitment = two or three times a week for 30 minutes at a time
- Working with more than one child on two or three different strands of the program. This option works for volunteers who wish to be very immersed in the program and help several children.
- time commitment = one hour (or more) for two or three days per week.
Volunteer Coaches are delighted to realize how much they can help a child in a short period of time. Also, many Volunteer Coaches have found their time in this program is very useful to them in their career development and/or in helping their own children.
Time of Year
Since most organizations currently using the Strong Start® Letters, Sounds and Wordsprogram are schools, the program tends to be operated twice in a school year. Each school decides the exact start dates. Most schools try to operate a fall and a spring program. The fall program can start as early as the last week of September or as late as mid-November, depending on the school. The spring session usually starts sometime in February or March depending on the school.
The Strong Start® organization provides the training. In order to support the various starting dates across all locations, a training schedule of approximately 20 sets of training workshop options is offered twice yearly. The fall training usually starts the third week of September and provides options through to mid-November. The spring training schedule usually starts the third week of January and provides options through to mid-March.