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The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading recently announced that it is recognizing the Miami-Dade Grade Level Reading Campaign with the 2019 Pacesetter Honors for its work in 2019 in the community solutions impact areas of summer and afterschool.
“We applaud the civic leaders and local funders whose time, talent, energy and imagination have fueled progress in these Pacesetter Communities,” said Ralph Smith, managing director of CGLR. “Mobilized communities support our big bet on the problem-solving potential of proximity, and we all have much to learn and emulate from their success.”
A collaborative effort by funders, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship, CGLR focuses on promoting early school success as an important building block of more hopeful futures for children in economically challenged families and communities. Through the generous funding of the Children’s Trust, the Reading Explorers Program (REP) has served over 10,000 young children and their families, through partnerships with 70-plus community agencies. REP, operated through the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University (FIU), in partnership with Nova Southeastern University (NSU), is a year-round initiative to provide reading enhancement services to afterschool and summer community-based programs across Miami-Dade County.
Demonstrated outcomes over the past six years show both reading growth and continued learning of children in the program throughout the summer months, with 44 percent of children moving up an instructional level by summer’s end. Afterschool literacy coaching focuses on capacity-building with community providers to strengthen systems and to build skills in delivering effective literacy instruction for our most vulnerable learners.
“We are so encouraged by the impact REP has made in our diverse community with continued support from The Children’s Trust,” said Dr. Katie Hart, program director. “This work would not be possible without the collective efforts of partners from multiple disciplines and organizations, including our REP master educators and university students, who join forces with dynamic community providers to engage young children and their families in building reading skills and the love of reading.”
Dr. Angela Waguespack, NSU program director, added, “We are both humbled and excited to be awarded the Pacesetter designation for our efforts and the possibility of serving as a model for other communities who are similarly working to ensure grade-level reading for all children.”
In Miami-Dade, the local GLR campaign is made up of over 50 partners and hosted by The Children’s Trust of Miami-Dade.
Launched in 2010, the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a collaborative effort of funders, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities across the nation to ensure that many more children from low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship.
Since its launch, CGLR has grown to include more than 350 communities, representing 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and two provinces in Canada — with 5,000-plus local organizations and 510 state and local funders (including over 200 United Ways).
To learn more, visit gradelevelreading.net.
