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ABOUT US
Introduction: The Reading Success Movement is a nonprofit program dedicated to helping communities create a system that ensures most every student becomes a successful reader and learner. Having a solid foundation, each student will go on to achieve their full potential. Background: Reading success by grade three is a very strong indicator of future academic and life success. Conversely, failure to achieve the third-grade reading proficiency milestone is a harbinger of future failure. Third-grade reading success is the single most important education milestone. Statement of Need: Despite best efforts to date, far too many children are failing to become proficient in reading. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress annual report, approximately two thirds of children in grades four and eight are not proficient in reading. When children who qualify for the school lunch program (46% of all students) are considered as a group, over 80% fail to achieve the third-grade reading milestone. Most students who are behind in reading in grade three never catch up. This national challenge needs to be addressed. Solution: Reading is the foundation of academic success, which in turn impacts life success. Although there are some differences in opinion on methodology, there is no mystery in how to teach the basics of reading, yet so many children fail. Why? Students who struggle to learn usually have a skill and achievement gap. Most schools do not have the resources to close this gap using the traditional one-on-many classroom instruction model. It requires individual, intensive nurturing and training to catch students up. Most at-risk students have the innate capacity to learn but have a significant language awareness and vocabulary gap and are unfamiliar with how text works because they were not talked to and read to enough in their early years. When they enter school, they don’t grasp the alphabetic principle (the concept that sounds are represented by meaningful written symbols) or develop vocabulary quickly enough to keep pace with peers who, through more extensive experience, have better assimilated the principles of the language. Prevention is a far more effective strategy vs. remediation. Each community must develop programs to improve school readiness and catch up students who are behind in grades K-2. However, students who failed to achieve the 3rd grade reading milestone must not be forgotten. There are more effective strategies that can also catch up older students. Program stages Womb to school and beyond (parent engagement)
Guiding principles
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