Local Literacy Nonprofit Reaches Nearly 50% More Students and Hopes to Help Children and Communities Thrive

A volunteer tutor and a student in a reading center engaging in Reading Partners’ traditional tutoring program (Photo Credit: Reading Partners)

Press Release

Despite COVID-19 variants creating ongoing disruptions in schools, Reading Partners continued to provide critical literacy support to students, schools, and communities. In fact, the nonprofit provided literacy tutoring to 47% more local students in the 2021-22 school year than the year before.

“The pandemic exacerbated the literacy crisis here in SC, where only 20% of at-risk students are reading proficiently by the end of fourth grade,” said executive director, Kecia Greenho. “It has been estimated that students have lost an additional seven months to a year’s worth of learning, so we need community volunteers to serve as tutors now more than ever. Reading is foundational – the ability to read transforms lives and empowers children and communities to thrive.”

2021-22 results show that Reading Partners continued to positively impact students

Each year, Reading Partners publishes reports highlighting student performance for the national organization and for each of its 12 respective regions across the country. The Impact & Innovation reports for the 2021-22 school year have recently been posted on readingpartners.org and include the following highlights in South Carolina.

• 361 students received 12+ sessions of one-on-one tutoring

• 8,275 total tutoring sessions were delivered to those same students

• 71% of sessions were delivered online via Reading Partners Connects

• 343 community tutors supported students

• 90% of volunteers were satisfied with their experience

• Learn more about Reading Partners’ impact in South Carolina here

• Learn about Reading Partners’ national impact here

In addition to reaching a lot of students, Reading Partners South Carolina achieved impressive student performance. In 2021-22, 79% of all Reading Partners students finished the year meeting or exceeding their primary end-of-year literacy growth goals, while 89% of K-2 Reading Partners students were developing mastery of key foundational reading skills needed to read and grade level.

Heading into the new school year, Reading Partners South Carolina anticipates needing more than 800 community volunteers to support students’ literacy development. Follow this link if you’re interested in investing one hour a week to help empower a student through reading.

Reading Partners also gets help from AmeriCorps members to train and provide ongoing support to literacy volunteers. Please follow this link if you’re interested in becoming an AmeriCorps member at Reading Partners.

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