Super excited to be apart of The Reading Partners Team! Everyday, I get to participate in helping a student build confidence in literacy. My favorite part is how excited they are when I pick them up from class and take the back after a session! I even overheard other students during pickup. Speak up about them also wanting to be in RP for to the impact it has on the students social and emotional well-being! The bonus you ask, is that my very open daughter was very fortunate to benefit as well from RP tutors and staff! Such a full circle moment for me! To give back the knowledge and support that has come into my household and extend it to others through grace and hope!
Having been involved in education as a school administrator, education attorney, state legislator, and school board member, it is exciting to see an evidence-based program like Reading Partners that is making strong, measurable gains in closing the early childhood reading proficiency gap. It is an excellent example of a scalable, cost-efficient program that can make a significant impact on the academic success of the students who participate and it also makes for such a rewarding experience for the volunteers who sign-up to help the students. I have had the opportunity to serve as a volunteer Reading Partners' tutor and to also observe the program first-hand in a number of different cities across the country, and I was so impressed with the gains being made at every Reading Partners' school site I visited.
Reading Partners is dedicated to providing a high quality and high impact program for community volunteers and students --and Reading Partners succeeds!
While I have only been tutoring a short while, I already look forward to my tutoring session every week. My student is so excited to learn and she shows me every week that she wants to succeed. I'm thrilled to see that with each session she is building confidence. It's hard to imagine what my student would do without Reading Partners.
I HIGHLY recommend this program as a volunteer opportunity. I was nervous to start at first but could not be happier now that I am a reading partner.
The program is made all the better by it's evidence based curriculum and close monitoring of students' progress. Reading Partners truly works!
Previous Stories
Reading Partners is an amazing program that targets the critical stage in reading between K-3rd grade where once you fall behind it becomes extremely hard to succeed in future grades, in high school and further in life. The tutors are a joy to watch, working one-on-one with students teaching them the joy of reading and exciting the students to no end. What a joy to watch children find happiness in learning.
I have watched Reading Partners in Charleston, SC transform kids' behavior and their ability to read. They significantly decrease the achievement gap. My most memorable moment is having a student who would barely speak to me my first day of tutoring turn into a talkative and confident young lady by the end of the year.