Help Your PreK-3rd Grade Child Stay On Track!

Reading Checkup gives parents/caretakers targeted activities to meet your child’s specific reading needs. And it’s free of charge!

Your child will complete two online quizzes, then parents/caretakers receive recommendations for specific reading skills to focus on at home, while choosing from targeted activities that meet the child’s needs.

urbanpromise targeted Literacy

Did you know that about 16% of children who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade do not graduate from high school on time… and that, when poverty is added to the equation, that percentage jumps to 35% [1]? As of a 2015 study, reading data shows that only 39% of Charlotte third graders were reading on grade level. For students struggling with poverty, the number was even lower [2].

One of the most vulnerable times of the year for young readers is summer break. The average student loses a month of reading achievement during that time; for students from economically-disadvantaged backgrounds, this “summer slide” learning regression increases to two to three months of loss [3].

But, over the last five summers, students who have participated in UrbanPromise Summer Camp have achieved an average of 3.5 months of reading growth in just six weeks! We're proud to help our students not only reduce or avoid the summer slide... but to actually reverse it.

UrbanPromise is committed to helping students grow in their love for reading and achieve literacy results that will set them up for success. The stakes are high, so we’re strategic about how we support our young readers.

structured LITERACY APPROACH

Throughout UrbanPromise’s AfterSchool and Summer Camp programs, certified teachers lead literacy instruction in small classes.  In every component of our Literacy Program, we strive to align our practice to the Science of Reading and how we know children learn best. In this structured literacy approach, teachers, tutors, and our Literacy Facilitator provide explicit and systematic instruction in the five essential components of reading and writing:

• Phonemic Awareness

• Phonics

• Fluency

• Vocabulary

• Comprehension 

Our Literacy Facilitator provides small group and individual instruction using the Orton-Gillingham method: a multisensory approach proven to be highly effective for both instruction and intervention.  

In order to provide targeted instruction and monitor growth, our Literacy staff tracks individual student reading data using the i-Ready diagnostic. 

LITERACY LEADS 

Each of our UrbanPromise sites has a small group of "Literacy Leads" - StreetLeaders who plan weekly with our Literacy Facilitator to help execute differentiated instruction for students and monitor student growth in fluency throughout the week.

All of our Literacy Leads are trained in the Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) model and utilize it for one-on-one tutoring. HELPS provides explicit instructional strategies designed to improve students' reading fluency.  Since the Spring of 2020, our Literacy Leads have transferred our data to a digital format in order to continue tutoring in a virtual format.  

Additionally, all StreetLeaders practice active reading strategies with individual students or small groups.

THANK YOU TO THESE GENEROUS COMMUNITY PARTNERS WHOse support goes specifically towards making OUR TARGETED LITERACY PROGRAM POSSIBLE!