Texanthropy Spotlight: Literacy First - 2016 Governor’s Volunteer Award “Partners in Education Award” Winner
Literacy First (formerly ACE: A community for Education) is the 2016 Governor’s Volunteer Award winner for Partners in Education. This award recognizes an individual or group that demonstrates a measurable impact on a recognized need within a public, charter, or parochial school, which Literacy First has done by implementing innovative and evidence-based solutions to further educational goals for students.
For over 20 years, Literacy First has provided one-on-one tutoring to low-income Austin ISD students in kindergarten through second grade with the goal of advancing students to grade level in reading by the third grade. Literacy First accomplishes this by providing 150,000 hours of bilingual, research-based early literacy tutoring and instruction to 2,200 students each year. And we know that Literacy First’s model is successful, because evaluations in recent years have shown that without intervention from a Literacy First tutor, the kindergarten and first grade students being tutored by the program would not have reached grade level in reading. Further, at least 75% of tutored students finish their year either at grade level or having made significant, measurable progress in their reading skills.
If you would like to learn more about how you can get involved with Literacy First, visit http://www.utdanacenter.org/literacyfirst/. And congratulations once again to Literacy First, the winner of the 2016 Governor’s Volunteer Award for Partners in Education!