Mentoring Month provides perfect opportunity to take action to support early literacy in the San Francisco Bay Area

For Immediate Release

Contact: Michelle Torgerson, Executive Director, Reading Partners San Francisco Bay Area
510-830-3021, michelle.torgerson@staging.readingpartners.org

January is National Mentoring Month and 725 students in the SF Bay Area are waiting to be matched with volunteer reading partners

(San Francisco Bay Area, California) January 24, 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 1,700 students in San Francisco Bay Area in the 2016-17 school year. Currently, there are over 725 students at 32 local elementary schools waiting to be matched with tutors. Mentoring month is the perfect time to get involved.

Across California, only 16 percent of fourth 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.

“Literacy is a platform for all future learning. By utilizing community volunteers ins partnership with a rigorous curriculum, we are bringing much needed capacity for high impact one-to-one tutoring support to schools that are under-resourced. Whether it is science, technology, engineering, math or band – this skillset propels students forward towards academic and career success” – Michelle Torgerson, Executive Director of Reading Partners San Francisco Bay Area

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 San Francisco Bay Area has an immediate need for volunteer tutors who can commit at least an hour a week to work with students in the following schools:

Oakland Unified School District

• Allendale Elementary School, 3670 Penniman Ave, Oakland, CA 94619

• Brookfield Elementary School, 401 Jones Ave, Oakland, CA 94603

• Cox/REACH Academy, 9860 Sunnyside St, Oakland, CA 94603

• Franklin Elementary School, 915 Foothill Blvd, Oakland, CA 94606

• Futures Elementary School, 6701 International Blvd, Oakland, CA 94621

San Francisco Unified School District

• Cesar Chavez Elementary School, 825 Shotwell St, San Francisco, CA 94110

• Cleveland Elementary School, 455 Athens St, San Francisco, CA 94112

• Hillcrest Elementary School, 810 Silver Ave, San Francisco, CA 94134

• Leonard Flynn Elementary School, 3125 Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco, CA 9411

• Sherman Elementary School, 1651 Union St, San Francisco, CA 94123

To learn more, please email volunteersf@readingpartners.org or call (510) 444-9800.

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.