We are proud to announce that Reading Seed, Literacy Connects’ reading program for school-age students, was recently honored as EducationPortal.com’s EDU Accelerator of the Year!
Each month of 2012, Education Portal awarded $500 to an education-focused organization that shares its mission of increasing education accessibility. At the end of the year, all organizations were nominated for EDU Accelerator of the Year. The winner was decided by popular vote and, as the EDU Accelerator of the Year, Reading Seed received a $1000 donation from Education Portal.
“Congratulations to Reading Seed, Education Portal’s first-ever EDU Accelerator of the Year. We look forward to seeing what Reading Seed accomplishes in 2013,” said Jessica Bayliss, Education Portal’s Director of Education.
All of us at Reading Seed and Literacy Connects are honored by the support we received in this national voting process. One voter shared with Education Portal that, “After years of K-12 public education budget cuts in Arizona, our classrooms are left with very little support and/or funding to meet the needs of our struggling and emergent readers. The dedicated team of Reading Seed volunteers has been so gracious and wonderful with our school’s students, introducing them to the love of reading with encouragement and care.”
In 2012, Reading Seed provided 114 elementary schools and over 3,000 struggling readers in kindergarten through third grade with access to one-on-one mentorship and support, individualized literacy coaching and free books to encourage independent reading. With just four staff members supporting over 800 trained and dedicated community volunteers, Reading Seed was able to help 87% of the students we serve improve their reading skills by at least one reading level.
Reading Seed plans to use the $1,000 from Education Portal to purchase new books and literacy materials for their Leveled Lending Library, a free resource utilized by hundreds of K-12 teachers, librarians, reading specialists and literacy tutors throughout Pima County.
Tamara McKinney, Reading Seed’s Program Director, commented that, “As the educators in our community work to implement the new Common Core standards, we are working to offer fun, low-level non-fiction books in our Lending Library to support their efforts. We are so grateful to Education Portal for supporting this important resource.”
To learn more about the Reading Seed program, please click here.
