Reading Partners is a children's

literacy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...

nonprofit based in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

with programs in over 40 school districts throughout

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

South Carolina )'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = "Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = G ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minne ...

, Oklahoma, and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. In the 2021-2022 school year, Reading Partners delivered individualized reading tutoring to 5,371 students in 181 partner schools.

Program

In its core program, Reading Partners operates reading centers at elementary schools in under-served communities where children reading below grade level receive free one-on-one tutoring from

volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

using a structured, research-based

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; plural, : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to ...

. The program is proven to improve students' progress in reading, with over 77% meeting or exceeding their end of year growth goals, according to the Reading Partners impact report released in 2022.

Teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

s refer students struggling with reading to the campus Reading Partners program, where they receive the one-on-one attention of a trained volunteer tutor for ninety minutes each week. Tutoring sessions focus on building students’ reading skills in five critical areas of literacy:

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

awareness,

phonics Phonics is a method for teaching people how to read and write an alphabetic language (such as English, Arabic or Russian). It is done by demonstrating the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters or gro ...

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

fluency Fluency (also called volubility and eloquency) is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise. Language use Language fluency is one of a variety of terms used to characterize or measure a perso ...

, and

comprehension Comprehension may refer to: * Comprehension (logic), the totality of intensions, that is, properties or qualities, that an object possesses * Comprehension approach, several methodologies of language learning that emphasize understanding languag ...

. Reading Partners’ curricular materials consist of three key components, each of which address different levels of reading ability with curriculum-based, logically sequenced materials. Upon entry into Reading Partners, every student is assessed using the

Rigby PM Ultra Benchmarking Kit Rigby may refer to: People *Amy Rigby (born 1959), American singer-songwriter *Beth Rigby (born 1976), British journalist *Bob Rigby (born 1951), American soccer goalkeeper *Cam Rigby (born 1978), Australian basketball player *Cathy Rigby (born ...

and placed into one of the three programs depending on the child’s individual needs.

History

Reading Partners began at Belle Haven Elementary School in Menlo Park when members of the community joined together to help students struggling with reading skills. At the time, fewer than 1 in 5 students at Belle Haven could read at grade level and more than 80% of students qualified for the

National School Lunch Program The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (79 P.L. 396, 60 Stat. 230) is a 1946 United States federal law that created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to provide low-cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through ...

. Starting with just three volunteers working in the school library, the organization quickly grew to serve more than 100 children at Belle Haven and began replicating to nearby

Title I The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1965. Part of Johnson's "War on Poverty", the act has been one of the most far-re ...

elementary schools. Originally called YES Reading, the organization changed its name to Reading Partners in 2008. From 2008 to 2016, the program expanded from serving 20 elementary schools in California to over 250 schools in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

External links

Reading Partners websiteVolunteer opportunities for high school students, ABC NewsReading Partners honored by the Volunteer Center of San FranciscoPartnering Up to Help Kids Learn, Pasadena Star-NewsLearning a Love of Reading, San Jose Mercury NewsPrisons are Robbing California's Schools, Los Angeles TimesA Tutor's Dream Come True, San Mateo Daily Journal

References

{{Reflist AmeriCorps organizations Educational organizations based in the United States Non-profit organizations based in California Organizations based in Oakland, California Service year programs in the United States