News & Photos
Pre-Schoolers Go From 33% To 99%
October 18, 2011United Way’s Read to Succeed program, created to help children develop and master critical pre-reading skills, has reached a milestone: 99% of its participants entered kindergarten this year with the basic reading skills needed to have a successful scholastic start. At the beginning of the reading program, only 33% of participants were ready for school.
Read to Succeed helps children with vocabulary, phonics, knowledge of the alphabet, and basic reading principles such as understanding that a book is read from left to right, top to bottom; 80 specially trained reading teachers work with pre-schoolers using age-appropriate books, writing materials and computers for up to two years.
More than 1,200 children are currently enrolled in Read to Succeed, and nearly 1,100 have completed the program since it was launched seven years ago. The program operates 38 classrooms with an average of 20 children per classroom; two new sites were opened last school year. Dr. Rena Hall recently joined United Way as Manager of Early Childhood Initiatives, as United Way continues to expand the program to meet the need.
