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Volunteer tutors could have a bigger impact on reading scores among Albuquerque students and efforts should be made to step up recruitment, school and Chamber of Commerce leaders agree.

Now in its fifth year, Albuquerque Reads, a volunteer program with nearly 600 tutors for 231 students at three schools, will be expanded to a fourth school when an additional 300 tutors come forward, said Michael Gaylor, Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce vice president for leadership and Albuquerque Reads.

Tapping parents as tutors would increase the numbers, Gaylor said. "We need to get more parents involved and the school district could help us do that right now," he said.

Many of the tutors have come from businesses which support the program by letting their employees have time off to work with the students.

Recruitment is currently under way for new tutors who will be trained at a Feb. 27 session.

Gaylor met this week with Albuquerque Public Schools interim Superintendent Linda Sink to discuss her interest in the expansion.

"I think we can expand this, and I want to do it around research," said Sink, who offered to provide data on Albuquerque Reads students' proficiency in reading at various grade levels.

"We all want to look at the data" before deciding the best way to expand the program, Sink said. Also, she said she wants the next superintendent's approval to pursue the expansion. The Albuquerque Board of Education intends to hire a superintendent early in March. Sink is a candidate for the job.

Gaylor said he was looking forward to the data to see how students in Albuquerque Reads have progressed through elementary school.

Albuquerque Reads tutors work with kindergarten students at Bel-Air, Wherry and Atrisco elementary schools. The students are tutored three times each week.

Data collected by the program at the three schools indicates 81 percent of the students entered first grade at or above first-grade reading level, compared to only 38 percent before Albuquerque Reads began tutoring at those schools.

Albuquerque Reads is a partnership of the school district and the chamber. The schools provide the personnel, including a reading specialist and educational assistant at each school, and the chamber recruits and trains the volunteers.

Sink said she's been studying the Cincinnati Reads program, which provides tutors for older children who are reading below grade level in all elementary grades. The Cincinnati program has had similar success raising the reading scores of students.

Albuquerque Reads was started based on the Ohio Reads program, the forerunner of the Cincinnati program.

Depending on what the Albuquerque Reads data shows at the third-grade level, Sink said tutors could be recruited for older students.

"I'm going to talk to the principals (at the Albuquerque Reads schools) and look at the data for the third, fourth and fifth grades," Sink said.