Mentoring Month provides perfect opportunity to take action to support early literacy in Charleston area

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kecia Greenho, Executive Director, Reading Partners South Carolina
(508) 561-3537, kecia.greenho@staging.readingpartners.org

January is National Mentoring Month and Reading Partners seeks to match volunteer tutors with students developing critical literacy skills

(Charleston, SC) January 10, 2017 — January is National Mentoring Month, and Reading Partners is encouraging more community members to join its efforts to provide students in under-resourced schools with the tutoring and mentorship they need to become proficient readers by the fourth grade. A proven national nonprofit that mobilizes community volunteers to work one-on-one with struggling readers, Reading Partners aims to serve 750 students in Charleston, Berkeley, and Florence counties in the 2016-17 school year. Currently, Reading Partners needs 200 more tutors in order for each of their 750 students to receive critical reading intervention twice a week. Mentoring month is the perfect time to get involved.

Across South Carolina, only 20 percent of third graders from low-income families are reading at grade level. Reading is the foundation for all future learning and Reading Partners tutors provide the individualized literacy support and mentorship to help students make the all-important shift from learning to read to reading to learn.

“Our volunteers are the heart of our work with our students, and our volunteers will tell you that it’s the highlight of their week,” says Kecia Greenho, Executive Director of Reading Partners South Carolina. “This is the best way to actively engage the community in helping to solve the education crises we have in South Carolina.”

Maryanne Davis Biddix, an employee at Benefitfocus and volunteer with Reading Partners, describes her time in the reading center as “impactful minutes,” because she and her student can accomplish so much in the 45 minutes they meet together each week. “You always get more than what you give — I’ve received so much joy from this [program],” says Maryanne.

Reading Partners volunteers utilize an easy-to-follow, individualized lesson plan each week, specific to their students’ needs in order to meet them at their level and help build both literacy skills and confidence.

Reading Partners South Carolina has an immediate need for volunteer tutors who can commit at least an hour a week to work with students in the following schools:

Charleston County School District

• Burns Elementary School  – 3795 Spruill Avenue, North Charleston, SC, 29405

• Chicora Elementary School – 3100 Carner Avenue, North Charleston, SC 29405

• Goodwin Elementary School – 5501 Dorchester Road, North Charleston, SC 29418

• Malcolm C. Hursey Elementary School – 4542 Simms Street, North Charleston, SC 29405

• Mitchell Elementary School – 2 Perry Street, Charleston, SC 29403

• Pepperhill Elementary School – 3300 Creola Road, North Charleston, SC 29420

• Sanders-Clyde Elementary School – 805 Morrison Drive, Charleston, SC 29403

Berkeley County School District

• H.E. Bonner Elementary School – 171 Macedonia Foxes Cir, Moncks Corner, SC 29461

• Whitesville Elementary School – 324 State Rd S-8-357, Moncks Corner, SC 29461

To learn more, please email volunteersc@readingpartners.org or call (843) 860-3915.

About Reading Partners

Reading Partners empowers students to succeed in reading and in life by engaging community volunteers to provide one-on-one tutoring. The national nonprofit organization will provide proven, individualized literacy tutoring to more than 11,000 elementary school students in under-resourced schools across ten states and the District of Columbia in the 2016-17 school year. Visit staging.readingpartners.org, or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, to learn more.