About Time for Literacy

Time For Literacy

• provides tutors for elementary students tutoring twice a week, 1/2 hour per child.
• trains volunteers as reading tutors.
• places tutors in participating schools.
• coordinates placement via PTO.
• helps students set & reach reading goals.
• is entirely non-profit and volunteer-staffed.
• donated 5,000+ hours in 2003.
• works with 125+ volunteer tutors in 21 schools.
• tutors about 250 students per year.
• is organized through the Community Literacy Council (formed in 1992).

Literacy: A National Concern

"America will go from great to second rate if our children cannot read well enough. The jobs of tomorrow demand complex skills and high-level performance."
-- Richard Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education (U.S. Dept. of Ed. News Bulletin, Spt. '93.)

"There is so much to be done, and we are the ones to get it done. You can play a role in your community. Volunteer to be a tutor."
-- Colin Powell (Parade Magazine, 27 Apr.'97:4-5)

The number of children who read below grade level worries business, political, and educational leaders across the nation. Our answer: It's Time For Literacy, a program to train volunteers to use guided reading techniques as they tutor school children.

With donations from community, participating students receive a book from their tutor and the Community Literacy Council.

The Community Makes "Time For Literacy"

Businesses

• match employee time donations.
• offer financial support.
• donate resources.

Through the school PTO

• parents become trained tutors.
• teachers coordinate tutoring for students.

Training courses

• provide skills to new tutors.
• introduce reading techniques.

Ongoing Inservice Support

• focusses on tutors' needs.
• offer monthly newsletters.

Dancing on a Rainbow

When my reading teacher
Comes to get me
For my special reading class
I feel like
Dancing on a rainbow.

To me she is

   a light in the darkness
   the twinkle of a star
   soft as a cotton ball
   a true friend.

When my reading teacher
Comes to get me
For my special reading class
I know what it is like
To dance on a rainbow.

-- Kalli Dakof. If You Are Not Here Please Raise your Hand: Poems about School. Simon Schuster: New York, 1995. 41.