On Thursday, June 25th, we had the privilege to attend a Tacoma Public Schools Board Meeting to celebrate our READY! Set, Read-Tacoma! graduates from this past school year. In total, we had 16 participants who graduated from READY! Set, Read-Tacoma! and we were honored to have 6 of them and their families join us at the celebration. Nevaeh (Blix Elementary), Isaiah (Brown’s Point Elementary), Xylee (Franklin Elementary), Alexia (McCarver Elementary), Hope (McCarver Elementary), and Reilly (Sherman Elementary) were all so excited to display their posters in front of the board members and celebrate their success. After many pictures and handshakes, we had a drawing for the grand prize; an Android Learning Tablet. The winning ticket went to Hope from McCarver and each graduate went home with a backpack full of books and other goodies.
During the 2014-15 school year, over 550 preschool aged children participated in RSR-T at 28 different elementary schools and 10 community sites around the city. All together, they read over 6,000 books. We track student progress in our program by comparing RSR-T participants with their peers upon entering kindergarten using data from the WaKIDS assessment. The 2013-14 data showed that kindergartners who participated in our program displayed significantly higher readiness in every domain, especially literacy.
For more information about the RSR-T program, please click here.