2023: Literacy Tutoring’s Best Year Yet!

Written by Read USA Inc. | Dec 13, 2023 9:51:12 PM

READ USA’s Literacy Tutoring program is celebrating a phenomenal 2023!

Not only are our elementary students in Literacy Tutoring making substantial progress with their literacy skills, but so are our teen tutors. Our teen tutors are also growing in their professional skills through the workforce development opportunities embedded in our Literacy Tutoring program.

Watch our CEO Dr. Rob Kelly give a brief, celebratory update about the progress made during 2023 – and reveal something very, very exciting that will be released in early 2024!

Our donors and supporters are who make all of this progress possible, and for that, we are immensely grateful.

If you’d like to support READ USA’s Literacy Tutoring program, our students and teens tutors, and all of our research-backed programming, consider donating to READ USA today!

Wishing our Jewish Friends a Happy Hanukkah

On this seventh day of Hanukkah, READ USA would like to wish a Chag Sameach to our Jewish friends around the world!

READ USA embraces the beautiful diversity within our community and beyond and joins our Jewish friends in celebrating the Hanukkah holiday.

One of our favorite books that captures the spirit of Hanukkah is Dreidels on the Brain by Joel Ben Izzy. This charming tale celebrates family, tradition, and the magic of the holiday season, and is a perfect story to introduce Hanukkah to your young loved ones!

Are you reading something special for Hanukkah? Let us know on social media so others can learn as well!

We wish everyone a warm and joyous Festival of Lights!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight…

Because we’ve distributed more than 1000 FREE books at three local elementary schools – and we have four more to go for Jeremy’s Winter Festival!

Jeremy – our fictional namesake of our Jeremy’s Journey children’s book series – brought quite the Winter Wonderland to the students at Mamie Agnes Jones, Arlington, and Long Branch elementary schools during the past two weeks! Every student at these schools went home with a brand-new drawstring bag filled with books and other goodies to enjoy during the holiday season.

Join us for the final four events! Volunteers are needed for two time slots, either 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. or 11 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., at the following schools:

Tomorrow, Dec. 14: Hogan-Spring Glen Elementary
Friday, Dec. 15: Beauclerc Elementary
Monday, Dec. 18: Lake Lucina Elementary
Wednesday, Dec. 20: S.A. Hull Elementary

To volunteer at any of the schools, please click here.

THANK YOU to our wonderful volunteers who have helped make these Winter Wonderlands possible! Many thanks also to the wonderful teachers and staff at Mamie Agnes Jones, Arlington, and Long Branch elementary schools for welcoming the READ USA team.

Pete the Cat: Snow Daze, by James Dean

Illustrated by Kimberly Dean

In Pete the Cat: Snow Daze, school is canceled, and Pete cannot wait to play in the snow with all his friends. Imagine a day filled with snowball fights, hot chocolate, snowcats, and more. But when the next day and the day after that are all snow days, Pete comes to a sudden realization—it is possible to have too many snow days?

When it snowed, Pete really enjoyed going out with his friends sledding, building snowmen, and snow forts. He was so excited about all the things that he could do in the snow that he couldn’t wait to get back to school to share his snow experiences with his friends. Every day that it snowed, Pete would come up with creative ideas of what to do and then he began to miss his teachers and his classmates. One day Pete and his friends decided to shovel the snow from the sidewalks and streets so the buses could run, and the children could go back to school. Pete and his friends were so happy to return to school to share what they did on the snow days.

This picture book would be a great book for students who live in Florida as it would give them an opportunity to see an element of the climate that they may not be accustomed to seeing.

Submitted by Dr. Barbara Lacey-Allen, Books Programs and Family Engagement Director

Parent Education Corner: Reading Aloud with Preschoolers

We READ ALOUD so preschoolers can:

Continue to associate reading and books with warm, pleasant feelings; learn about words and language; and expand listening skills.
Pay attention to the language of books and begin to notice how it differs from spoken language.
Build their vocabularies with words they understand and can use.
Gain background knowledge about a variety of topics.
Talk about the characters, setting, and plot and relate them to their own lives.
Learn more about print concepts, such as: print is spoken words written down, the letters in words are written in a certain order, and written words are separated by space.
Have fun!

Choose books preschoolers like:

Preschoolers feel good about their growing skills and accomplishments. As they learn new concepts and self-help skills, read stories with characters who are having similar experiences.
Preschoolers have good memories. Read stories with simple plots children can retell in their own words and pattern books with repetitive and predictable rhymes, phrases and story lines that let children participate.
Preschoolers are building their listening skills and attention spans. Read longer picture books and begin to read chapter books that last for several sessions.
Preschoolers are curious. Read information books on topics of interest. Information books give facts and explanations and introduce new people, places, and things.

Try these ideas:

Introduce the book: read the title, author, and illustrator; look at the cover, talk about what the book might be about; suggest things to look and listen for.
Run your finger under the text; pause at the end of sentences.
Answer questions related to the book; save other questions for later.
Ask children to look closely at the pictures to help them understand the story and make predictions about what might happen next.
Pause and wait so children can say the word that ends a repetitive or predictable phrase.
Talk about the story during and after a read-aloud.
Follow-up on the story. Invite a child to talk, draw, paint, or pretend to be one of the characters.

Submitted by Kathi Hart, Content Specialist

Do you have any questions or ideas for the Parent Education Corner? Anything you’d like to learn? Let us know here!

View full post