Program areas at Read USA
Read USA served over 50,000 pre-school age and elementary school students from in over 100 elementary schools and 5 community centers that serve children from under resourced communities with over 150,000 brand new, age appropriate books they selected for book ownership and building their home libraries.
Read USA held a community event, "peace in the pages," raising awareness through honoring award winners in the community that exemplify the relationship between literacy and peace, prosperity, empathy, non-violence, justice, and freedom and encourage support towards these issues, especially illiteracy.
Read USA also expanded their peer-to-peer reading tutoring intervention program employing, training, and supervising over 250 high school teens mostly from the mayor's youth at work partnership and hiring over 50 licensed educators within the school district providing enhanced pay and professional literacy instruction development. These teen tutors received training on the curriculum materials and professional work environment expectation and skills. They were then paired with nearly 800 elementary school students identified by the school district as below grade level readers for an intense daily 1 to 1 literacy tutoring session for 4 months in 12 duval county elementary schools. Pre and post assessment tests were analyzed by an independent source, the university of north Florida, which showed to be highly effective in producing reading gains for both the teen tutors as well as the younger students they led.
Read USA expanded its multi-cultural literacy offerings through expanded partnerships with the jacksonville jaguars, the cummer museum of art and gardens, and others with additional book ownership opportunities for children as a well as many additional free digital resources, including Read alouds by local and national leaders, many video creations by Read USA as well as instructional videos and resources for educators and families.