A small table in a hallway at Elephant’s Fork Elementary School is Beth Pipkin’s classroom.

The children’s literacy volunteer encouraged three first-graders to think about the words before trying to say them.

Laid on the table in front of Victoria Simmons, Zariah Dabbs and Dirus Smith are small cardboard rectangles each featuring a different word, mastery of which is essential.

The stakes are high: 60 percent of high school dropouts couldn’t read on grade level when they were in the third grade, says Pipkin, a retired reading specialist with Virginia Beach City Public Schools.

Pipkin’s students today trip up on “loose” and “lose.” Pipkin coaxes them to think about how one more or one fewer O alters the sound and the meaning.

Pipkin’s husband, Dr. Bob Pipkin, is the pastor at Suffolk’s West End Baptist Church, where they started a Book Buddies tutoring program for elementary school children last year.

“We were looking for something to do in the community,” Beth Pipkin said.

Pipkin had witnessed such a program meet with success in the Charlottesville school system when she was studying for her master’s degree at the University of Virginia.

Starting off, according to Pipkin, the expectation at West End Baptist was 10 children every Thursday. But numbers soon swelled to about 35.

“It was really nice to see so many parents sign on,” she said.

When school district Superintendent Deran Whitney learned of the church members’ activities, he asked them to bring the program directly into schools to increase access.

“What we found was some of the students who really needed help didn’t have transportation to get to the church,” said Caren Bueshi, a Title I teacher at Elephant’s Fork.

Primarily with a three-year grant from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation, the Pipkins formed a nonprofit, Children’s Literacy of Suffolk, to extend the work.

Support has also come from the Birdsong Foundation, Suffolk Foundation, Pruden Foundation, Haddad Foundation and Farmers Bank.

Pipkin said she’s currently tutoring 20 first-graders and eight second-graders at Elephant’s Fork, and the program is also in Booker T. Washington Elementary.

“Next (school) year we plan to be in four schools, but we need more volunteers,” she said.

Minimizing disruption at Elephant’s Fork, Pipkin ushers the small groups of students down the hallway to her table while their classmates are doing group work.

They start out with some “word work” on high-frequency words, like “loose” and “lose,” before moving on to word patterns and reading an appropriately pitched book.

“This is a more difficult book than you have read before, and I love that you did it so well,” Pipkin told Victoria, Zariah and Dirus, after the group read “Loose Tooth” together.

“I’m proud of you.”

Anyone interested in the program — parents or volunteers — can contact Beth Pipkin at beth.pipkin@cox.net or 620-8220.