What surprised Martin Van Buren HS junior Sabriya Hiyaat most was that she got what she expected least from the little ones she read to at PS 18 in Queens Village. As a top student at the Hillside Avenue high school, Sabriya was one of 25 students who signed up to read, teach and otherwise mentor 4th- and 5th-graders who needed a bit more academic attention. “I thought they’d be annoying and that I’d have to be mean and yell at them,” said Sabriya, 16, who several times a week since February has made the 15-minute trek through sleet, snow and ice to PS 18. The program has provided moving stories of what happens when trust is established and connections are made, said Gail Kazin, who supervises the PS 18 program, which includes 37 children who are tutored in small groups and individually. In one case, Kazin noticed that a child seemed particularly lonely and “in need of a buddy.” A consistent tutor drew him out by reading with him, overseeing homework and talking about everyday things. “It made a huge difference,” said Kazin, herself a Van Buren graduate. Both schools are richly diverse, as are the tutors and the tutored. One teenage girl was paired with a young boy who spoke little English. “Here’s a small child who feels like maybe he doesn’t belong and here comes his tutor, who speaks with him in Punjabi,” said Pamela Fried, an English teacher who supervises the Van Buren students. “Now, he can converse and has a shared culture with someone he looks up to.” The benefits are hardly one-sided. “I ended up loving them,” said Sabriya. “We’re not that much older than they are, but they’re so small and sweet and they needed us.”