Last week, several members of our team were in Washington, D.C. to meet with AmeriCorps and Congressional staff and to attend the annual Accelerate conference – and what a fantastic trip they had!
As an AmeriCorps grantee, READ USA had the opportunity to meet with AmeriCorps leadership to share the latest on our Literacy Tutoring program results. Additionally, our team met with the staff members of elected officials representing Northeast Florida, including the staff of U.S. Senator Rick Scott, U.S. Representative Aaron Bean, and U.S. Representative John Rutherford. We highlighted how we prepare the workforce of tomorrow by employing and training our teen tutors. The training and coaching the teen tutors receive in the READ USA Literacy Tutoring program equips them no matter what career path they choose. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet with AmeriCorps leadership and our elected officials. A big THANK YOU from READ USA!
Accelerate and ProvenTutoring also hosted the 2025 Annual Convening: State of High-Dosage Tutoring, bringing together hundreds of professionals at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center for two days to, “share learnings, collaborate, and advance the momentum around high-dosage tutoring and other personalized learning interventions to drive positive change in education.” Naturally, team members from READ USA were there to participate, learn, and network!
“Participating in the Accelerate conference help us understand how high-dosage tutoring programs, like our Literacy Tutoring program, are performing and succeeding across the country and how these programs are scaled,” shared our President and CEO Dr. Rob Kelly. “Accelerate is heavily focused on research and elevating evidence-based practices that are closing achievement gaps in education. READ USA has added to that corpus of evidence with our own RCT [randomized controlled trial] results which proves that our literacy tutoring program is helping close the reading gap.”
Many thanks to Accelerate for convening the best and brightest in high-impact tutoring last week, and to our fellow attendees who are doing amazing work across the U.S.!
Sharing Best Practices with Fellow Educators
Our very own Chief Information Officer Holden Scyster joined several esteemed panelists last week for a lively discussion at Teach for America Jacksonville’s One Day Breakfast, and we were thankful for the opportunity to share our work and impact with fellow educators!
Teach for America (TFA) Jacksonville’s first annual One Day Breakfast is named as such for a very specific reason: its vision is that one day, all children – regardless of their zip code or background – will have access to an excellent education.
During the panel, Holden discussed our Literacy Tutoring program and the impact that the teen tutors we train and employ are having on the elementary students they tutor who are struggling to read. Fellow panelists also shared the ways their respective organizations are working to close the literacy gap. Thank you to Holden and his fellow panelists for all of the info, insights, and most importantly – inspiration – that they shared:
- Michael Ramirez, Chief of Staff for Duval County Public Schools (DCPS)
- Maisha Robinson, M.D., Palliative Medicine Physician & Community Relations Chair at Mayo Clinic
- Catherine Roddy, Reading Coach & Ignite Site Leader at San Jose Elementary School
And, thank you to panel moderator Allishia Bauman, Executive Director of City Year Jacksonville! We are also thankful to Mayo Clinic for hosting and sponsoring the event, as well as other event and TFA Jacksonville sponsors for their support of teachers and students in Duval County.
Finally, congratulations to the award honorees that TFA Jacksonville recognized during the event! Particular congratulations to Steve Halverson, who is also a passionate READ USA supporter, who received the inaugural Lasting Legacy Award from TFA Jacksonville for the pivotal role he played alongside other community leaders in bringing TFA to Jacksonville and bringing more than 600 new teachers to Duval County since 2008. Like TFA Jacksonville said in its program, “Steve’s contribution to Jacksonville’s education landscape will continue to enrich people’s lives for years to come!”
Congratulations to TFA Jacksonville on a fabulous event! We enjoyed the opportunity to participate and support!
Check out some more photos from the event here.
Announcing the Emily Leyenberger Pfohl Future Teacher Scholarship Fund
READ USA is honored to establish the Emily Leyenberger Pfohl Future Teacher Scholarship Fund in memory of Emily Leyenberger Pfohl, a dedicated educator whose contributions profoundly impacted students, tutors, and the broader literacy community.
Emily was a teacher in our Literacy Tutoring program for several years and has been a passionate supporter of READ USA since our founding. During her tenure with READ USA, Emily played a pivotal role in enhancing support for bilingual tutors and English Language Learners, fostering a high-achieving learning environment.
The Emily Leyenberger Pfohl Future Teacher Scholarship will be awarded to a bilingual READ USA tutor who aspires to pursue a career in education and exemplifies the dedication, compassion, and excellence that defined Emily’s work. By investing in the next generation of educators, this fund will continue Emily’s legacy of advocacy, mentorship, and commitment to literacy.
If you would like to make a contribution to the Emily Leyenberger Pfohl Future Teacher Scholarship Fund, please click here. You can also read more about Emily in her obituary here.
The Big Game’s Coming Up! Do You Have Your Tickets?!
We’re less than one month away from THE PLAYERS Championship, coming up in March!
Now’s the time to get your tickets – and you can get the LOWEST COST tickets possible through READ USA!
READ USA is an approved Chip-in for Charity nonprofit, so we receive $40 from every competition-day ticket sold using our promo code (305FTE) – and you receive the most affordable tickets available!
#TruthBomb: Competition-day ticket prices won’t go up between now and Feb. 28 through Chip-in for Charity!
Remember to use our promo code: 305FTE
Some things to keep in mind:
- Tickets are for competition round days only (Thursday-Sunday); tickets for practice rounds are not available with this promo code.
- Limit 6 tickets, per Ticketmaster account, per day; you can return after 24 hours to purchase more tickets – and we welcome you to do so!
- General tickets are dynamically priced (the cost will increase over time), but the tickets sold through Chip-in for Charity will remain the same:
- Thursday, March 13: $85 + tax
- Friday, March 14: $95 + tax
- Saturday, March 15: $95 + tax
- Sunday, March 16: $90 + tax
Fun With Friends – and Books!
What’s the best group-fun activity you can do this Spring with your friends?!
The READ USA Book Fairs!
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We get it – brunch is fun – but you know the joy you feel when you pick out a new book? Well, multiply that by 100 when you volunteer at a READ USA Book Fair!
At the Book Fairs coming up at elementary schools across Duval County this Spring, students get to choose two FREE books to take home and keep. Our volunteers are vital to the Book Fairs by helping students pick out books that interest them, putting the students’ names in their books, and generally making sure that the fairs operate smoothly. Volunteers wear a signature READ USA red apron and can choose from a variety of activities:
- The best one: guiding students through the Book Fair and seeing their faces light up when they find “the ones” they want! (THIS is what makes the Book Fairs so much fun!!)
- Organizing books by age, genre, and other categories – it’s fun to organize and “play” with books, too!
- Book labeling and bagging
- Set-up and tear-down
- on- and off-site support (including administrative preparations, organizing fellow volunteers, etc.)
If there is a specific school where you’d like to volunteer, let us know! Email us at books@readusainc.com. We will be releasing the full schedule soon, so stay tuned!
Children’s Book: Rocco Travels with the Presidents by Rocco Smirne
In honor of Presidents’ Day earlier this week, we wanted to share the coolest children’s book that one of our team members found while in Washington, D.C., last week (more details about that above!):
Rocco Travels with the Presidents!
Written by Rocco Smirne, illustrated by John Hutton, and published by The White House Historical Association, the book walks young readers through different modes of transport used by U.S. Presidents since our country’s founding.
“For more than two hundred years, the presidents have traveled on horses, trains, ships, cars, airplanes, and helicopters. Sometimes, just for fun, they have also used bicycles, golf carts, Segways, and even parachutes!”
Check out more about The White House Historical Association and other books about America’s Executive Mansion here!
Submitted by READ USA Staff
Parent Education Corner: Building Pre-Reading Skills – Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is foundational to reading for emergent and early readers. Phonemic awareness is a child’s basic understanding that speech is composed of a series of sounds. It is the ability to manipulate these sounds, known as phonemes, in words orally. It is the understanding that every word is comprised of basic sounds or phonemes. Playing with words and sounds verbally is the best way to help children hear how these sounds fit together to make words.
Parents can help their preschoolers practice phonemic awareness by singing songs and nursery rhymes together, talking about the words that rhyme, or that sound alike at the end of the words. Young children love to play with words, calling out a list of words that all sound the same at the beginning or end of the word: b-baby, b-bug, b-boy, etc. Ask your young one to say words without parts of them. Say ant without the ‘t’, say play without the ‘p’, say mail with the ‘m’, etc.
For more ideas on how to practice this critical reading skill, check out this resource for parents from Heggerdy, with materials that are used by classroom teachers across the country: https://heggerty.org/parents/
Submitted by Tabetha Cox, READ USA Chief Tutoring Officer
Do you have any questions or ideas for the Parent Education Corner? Anything you’d like to learn? Let us know here!