Progress in the Georgia Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

In Novem­ber, the Atlanta Civic Site host­ed a ses­sion with lead­ers in the field of child­hood lit­er­a­cy to solic­it their advice for strength­en­ing and expand­ing the Geor­gia Cam­paign for Grade-Lev­el Reading.

Rec­og­niz­ing that many peo­ple already under­stand the val­ue of ear­ly learn­ing and lit­er­a­cy, ses­sion par­tic­i­pants stressed the need to ensure that exist­ing efforts were aligned and focused on the larg­er goal of read­ing at grade lev­el by the end of third grade and devel­op­ing mea­sures of suc­cess. Par­tic­i­pants also advo­cat­ed for the inclu­sion of lit­er­a­cy in exist­ing and emerg­ing inter­ven­tions for younger chil­dren and child health. The Atlanta Civic Site already is incor­po­rat­ing ear­ly read­ing into health ser­vices through the Healthy Begin­nings Sys­tem of Care and Unit­ed Way of Met­ro­pol­i­tan Atlanta’s recent­ly launched Project Health Access, which pro­vides two Ameri­Corps ser­vice mem­bers at the civic site focused on healthy activities.

The Geor­gia Cam­paign for Grade-Lev­el Read­ing is a statewide effort to ensure that all chil­dren are pro­fi­cient read­ers by the end of third grade. Like cam­paigns in 11 oth­er states, Geor­gia’s builds on exten­sive research doc­u­ment­ing the impor­tance of this edu­ca­tion­al mile­stone and of sup­port­ing lit­er­a­cy devel­op­ment from infan­cy. The cam­paign tar­gets the areas of school readi­ness, stu­dent atten­dance and sum­mer learn­ing loss.

Gov. Nathan Deal has tak­en a strong stance in sup­port of grade-lev­el read­ing, launch­ing the Read Across Geor­gia ini­tia­tive. Atlanta, Brunswick and Savan­nah com­mit­ted to be part of the All-Amer­i­ca City Grade-Lev­el Read­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Net­work, and, this fall, Atlanta received a Cities of Ser­vice grant to pro­vide one-on-one tutor­ing in four schools with chil­dren in kinder­garten through sec­ond grade.