Kids Need to Read is pleased to announce it has received a $25,000 national grant from the Kathy and Jerry Wood Foundation. This is the second year of funding from the foundation to help expand the READ Together program at nineteen schools located in low socioeconomic areas of the United States. READ Together addresses the systemic barriers to early school and childhood success by providing plentiful resources for at-home and on-campus reading activities, both crucial to building long-term reading achievement.
READ Together’s first year focused on increasing the reading proficiency levels of kindergarten students in seventy classrooms across the nation. The program is expanding during the 2016–2017 school year to include first grade students at each school in order to provide participating students and their caregivers with two solid years of daily reading resources and inspiration.
The program is being conducted in Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia. We received wonderfully positive comments from kindergarten teachers who conducted READ Together in their classrooms this past school year, including the following example:
Read Together was very beneficial for my kinder students. . . . With Read Together it gave the students an opportunity to take books home and having that one on one time with their parents. I noticed a difference once I started sending books home because when students would come across a word they already knew from reading they were very happy to be able to read. I saw a growth from their [Developmental Reading Assessment] scores which was a plus for the students and I. —Mexicoytl Academy, Tucson, Arizona
We sincerely thank the Kathy and Jerry Wood Foundation, a private, charitable foundation established in 2006 through the wills of the late Kathy Wood and her husband, the late Jerry Wood. The foundation focuses on education and Kids Need to Read is looking forward to continuing its service to the children who are benefiting from Kathy and Jerry Wood’s foresight and generosity.
More: READ Together Information and Family Reading Tips
READ Together Contributors
Cardinals Charities
GreaterGood.org
Highlights for Children, Inc.
John F. Long Foundation
Kathy and Jerry Wood Foundation
Mesa United Way
NBAZ Charities
