Read to a Child Inc.
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Mission Statement
Read to a Child is a national literacy and mentoring non-profit with a mission to foster a love of reading, improve literacy skills and empower under-served children by inspiring adults to read to them regularly. Research shows that reading aloud to children is the single most important activity for eventual success in reading, a key factor for success in school, work, and life. When an adult reads aloud to a child, both parties have a joyful, rewarding experience that instills a love of reading, improves literacy skills, and enhances a child’s self-confidence. Read to a Child’s Lunchtime Reading Program utilizes more than 1,700 volunteer mentors from over 125 socially-minded organizations who read one-on-one to more than 1,300 at-risk elementary school students in Greater Boston, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles and Miami.
About This Cause
Read to a Child is a national literacy and mentoring non-profit with a mission to foster a love of reading, improve literacy skills and empower under-served children by inspiring adults to read to them regularly. Research shows that reading aloud to children is the single most important activity for eventual success in reading, a key factor for success in school, work, and life. When an adult reads aloud to a child, both parties have a joyful, rewarding experience that instills a love of reading, improves literacy skills, and enhances a child’s self-confidence. Read to a Child is headquartered in Wellesley, MA and operates programs in five regions: greater metro areas of Boston, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles and Miami. The organization is governed by a national board of directors comprised of business and education leaders from across the country. The organization is led by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who is supported by 15 office staff members at both headquarters and regional offices. Part-time School Coordinators (34) work on-site at every school where Read to a Child operates its Lunchtime Reading Program. In each region, Read to a Child is also supported by a regional board of advisors, comprised of local champions. In school year 2016-17, Read to a Child provided more than 35,000 one-on-one reading sessions for 1,328 elementary school students in grades K through four. These children worked with 1,701 adult volunteers from more than 125 corporations and institutions in 32 elementary schools across the country. Why Read to a Child? The landmark 2013 Annie E. Casey Foundation publication, 'Early Warning Confirmed: A Research Update on Third-Grade Reading,' reported that 80% of 4th graders from low-income families nationwide are not proficient in reading and that more than ¼ of these struggling readers do not graduate from high school! What is the Lunchtime Reading Program? In Read to a Child’s Lunchtime Reading Program, an adult is partnered one-on-one with an at-risk elementary school student for a rewarding read aloud experience during the child’s lunch break. The relationship typically lasts for the entire school year and often extends for multiple years through the end of fourth grade. The simple act of reading aloud to a child once a week, over time, can have a profound impact on the child’s future. The Lunchtime Reading Program also offers the adult a convenient, joyful, and meaningful way to give back. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What are the primary goals of the Lunchtime Reading Program? 1. To generate children’s enthusiasm for books and reading 2. To improve children’s fundamental literacy skills 3. To increase children’s self-confidence through weekly attention from their mentors 4. To provide adults with a flexible, convenient, and meaningful volunteer experience 5. To bring community support and resources into public elementary schools What are the evaluation results of the Lunchtime Reading Program? Teacher assessments of individual students in the 2016-2017 year shows that 98% of students improved in one or more of the following categories (listed here along with specific levels of improvement): • Reading ability (92%) • Vocabulary (90%) • Listening comprehension (94%) • Ability to articulate thoughts (89%) • Enthusiasm for books & reading (92%) • Reading by choice (87%) • Interest in reading instruction (90%) • Exposure to new ideas, knowledge, and places (96%) • Self-confidence (92%) • Critical thinking (85%) How does the Lunchtime Reading Program operate? • Read to a Child’s corporate partners provide annual financial support and/or employees to participate as volunteer reading mentors. • Read to a Child conducts a background check and training session (either in-person or online) for each volunteer and matches them with a student based upon teacher referrals. • On a designated day each week, volunteers visit the school, check-in with the Read to a Child School Coordinator, meet their student, and proceed to a reading space in the school. • Volunteers select age-appropriate books from multiple genres available on the Read to a Child book cart. • Volunteers may alternate weeks with a participating colleague, thereby reading every two weeks instead of every week. • In the case of student absences, the School Coordinator notifies the volunteers prior to the scheduled meeting time; rescheduling is encouraged. • The School Coordinator also handles volunteer cancellations and reschedules sessions. • Volunteer reading partners commit to the program for one school year but are encouraged to continue with the same child in subsequent years. • The program currently serves students in grades 1 through 4 and is being piloted for kindergarten students. • The program currently operates at no cost to the underresourced schools served. Organizational History Read to a Child was founded on the belief that every child deserves to be read to regularly by a caring adult. Read to a Child’s roots date back to 1991, when New York businessman Arthur Tannenbaum organized five volunteers to read to children on their lunch break in a Manhattan elementary school. Subsequently, Arthur founded the organization Everybody Wins!, which then grew to operate in urban centers across the country. Everybody Wins! USA was incorporated in Washington, DC in 2005 to provide guidance to the chapters forming throughout the country. In 2012 Everybody Wins! USA restructured by merging with several independent Everybody Wins! chapters and, in 2013, changed its name to Read to a Child to better express the organization’s mission. VALUE PROPOSITIONS Corporate Partners Read to a Child enables organizations to contribute to their local communities in a meaningful and measureable way, to provide an opportunity for employee engagement that results in greater employee satisfaction and retention, and to align with a respected nonprofit for positive, socially-minded promotional opportunities. Read to a Child provides a turnkey solution that delivers a quality program with proven results in improving the success of children in school and life while also enabling employees to have an extremely enjoyable, convenient and meaningful volunteer opportunity. Adult Volunteer Reading Mentors Read to a Child offers simple, structured programming that does not require considerable time or training to successfully execute. Reading to a child is something that nearly anyone can participate in, allowing the adult to have considerable impact on the life of the child, as well as to enjoy the rewarding experience of spending time with a child on a joyful activity. Funders Read to a Child has more than ten years of experience in running a highly efficient and impactful organization. Charitable dollars are optimized to make a difference in the lives of individual children through a unique, one-on-one adult-child read aloud experience that instills in children a love of reading, improved literacy skills and greater self-confidence. Research strongly supports that literacy influences a child’s chances for success in life, which, ultimately, determines the strength of our society. **The vision of Read to a Child is that one day all children will be read to by a caring adult, improving their chance for success in school, work, and life.**