Third Grade Reads is a high-impact service strategy in which the mayor’s office leverages the power of volunteers to help children attain reading level proficiency by the beginning of the fourth grade. Through a partnership involving the Office of the Mayor-President, the Big Buddy Program, and the school district, volunteers tutor the highest need students in Pre-K through First grade to help improve their overall literacy skills, focusing on phonemic awareness, reading accuracy and comprehension during after school programming.
This volunteer-based literacy initiative intervention program is designed to provide struggling readers with more opportunities to read using research-based tutoring methods – helping to improve student reading levels and ultimately increasing their chances of long-term educational success.
The initiative aims to reach between 20 and 40 children in its pilot during the first summer, with a goal to increase the understanding of phonemic awareness, a key pre-reading skill. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words.
For more information on the initiative or to learn more about how you can get involved, please contact Kia Bickham, Chief Service Officer at (225)389-3100 or email to: Kia Bickham.