Reading Results Awarded Nike Employee Grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Keith Daly
keith@readingresultspdx.org
(503) 477-8176

READING RESULTS AWARDED NIKE EMPLOYEE GRANT

Portland, Oregon (April 6, 2015) — Reading Results is pleased to announce that it has been chosen to receive funding from the Nike Employee Grant Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation to expand our innovative, proven tutoring program for first through third grade students who are low-income and students of color; adding 120 students in six Portland schools.

The Nike Employee Grant Fund was established in 2010 to benefit communities where Nike employees live, work and play. Through this fund, Nike employees work with The Oregon Community Foundation to award at least $550,000 per year to nonprofits and schools in the Metropolitan Portland region and in Southwest Washington.

We are honored to have Reading Results selected to receive this grant from the Nike Employee Grant Fund,” said Jennifer Samuels, Reading Results Executive Director. “This investment will make it possible for our program to expand to more area schools and help provide literacy support for the children in our community who need it most, putting them on a path for academic success and a brighter future.”

Working toward the vision that all children have the right to read and succeed, Reading Results partners with schools serving low-income students to provide a proven reading intervention program. The ability to read at grade level by the end of third grade is an early and consistent indicator of a student being on track to graduate high school. This is especially true for low-income students and students of color. When students reach the fourth grade they transition from learning to read, to reading to learn. According to the Children’s Reading Foundation, up to half of the printed fourth grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below grade level. Students who cannot read proficiently continue to slip farther behind in all academic subjects, steadily increasing their risk of dropping out before completing high school.

To address the specific challenge of third grade reading success, a group of teachers founded Reading Results in 2000. With a focus on equity, we partner with schools to identify first, second and third graders who are falling behind in reading and intervene — providing an intensive reading instructional program. Students work during the school day with paid, trained tutors for 30 minutes, three times each week throughout the school year. Our tutoring team is comprised of (1) certified teachers/reading specialists and (2) unemployed or underemployed parents selected from the low-income school community who undergo extensive training. Employing parents not only provides a needed economic boost for struggling families, it also helps us shape the program to be more responsive to community needs and creates direct lines of communication in support of literacy with the populations we are serving.

Our program is aligned with Common Core State Standards, and is an evidenced based, data-driven, direct instruction program. Our model intentionally emphasizes building the traits of grit and perseverance among our youngest learners, fostering self-reliance and building self-esteem. Tutors spend the school year working with students, delivering both our curriculum as well as an intentional message to each struggling child: “You are important. Your community cares about you and your future.”

This model has proven to be highly effective:

  • Students in our program gain an average of 1.5 years in reading skills
  • Students in our program gain 1.3 years in spelling skills
  • 85% of first graders are reading at grade level after one year in our program
  • 65% of second and third graders are reading at grade level after one year
  • 100% of participants show improvement on one or more diagnostic and standardized reading tests

Two school-wide Family Literacy Nights are held at each school to engage the entire school community and provide families with additional tools to encourage literacy a home.

Oregon Community Foundation works with individuals, families, businesses and organizations to create charitable funds — more than 1,700 of them — that support the community causes they care about. These funds support the critical work that nonprofits are doing across Oregon. Through these funds, OCF annually awards more than $60 million in grants and scholarships. Learn more at www.OregonCF.org.

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Reading Results
3115 NE Sandy Blvd, Suite 229, Portland, OR 97232 (503) 477-8176
www.readingresultspdx.org

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