This summer, NBC 5 has been highlighting organizations doing their best to move the needle when it comes to childhood literacy levels. Reading Partners North Texas recently celebrated the unsung heroes of AmeriCorps who continue to help them work to help young students.
AmeriCorps volunteers spent the 2023-2024 school year helping young students catch up on their reading skills were recently honored.
“You’re changing a student’s mindset from a stale mindset to a growth mindset,” volunteer Crystal Dupont said.
The nonprofit said a little less than 40 percent of fourth graders in North Texas are reading on grade level, but the ones who went through the Reading Partners program have a much different story.
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According to program directors, 87 percent of those students hit their reading level goals once they went through Reading Partners North Texas. Those increases are thanks in large part to volunteers like Dupont and Julie Hagood, who has served as a volunteer for the last three years.
“I'm telling you, I have seen people from ages 14 to 84 come in and tutor these kids, and when I realized that I could do it at age 55, I jumped at it," Hagood said. “Tutors and students come in feeling scared sometimes and they go out with their shoulders back thinking, what I did matters.”
Those same thoughts are echoed by Dupont.
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“We've had students that were nonverbal, they didn't speak or they didn't have the confidence to read at all, and so they're familiar with reading partners. So when they know it's time for tutoring, they get excited, they're more open, they have a joy for reading, and we've instilled that into them,” Dupont said.
Reading Partners North Texas is always looking for volunteers, go to their website for more information on how you can help.
