Rotary Proud Reading Sponsor

In June 2017, the Rotary Club of Decatur generously agreed to fund $1,500 for Innovative Reading Tools in Decatur City Schools.

Since their very first donation of $500 in 1998, the Rotary Club of Decatur has modeled a lifetime of giving through the Decatur City Schools Foundation totaling over $11,000 to date.

With partners like Rotary and many others, it seems like the Foundation is always celebrating something new and exciting.

The change we’re celebrating this time is the introduction of reading materials supporting the Decatur City Schools effort to increase the reading skills of over 4,000 students in Kindergarten - 5th grades.

These reading materials are called Leveled Reading Libraries, and will be used in all 12 of Decatur’s elementary schools. Leveled Reading fosters a level of ability that is custom-made for each reader; in which student reading is guided not by a certain age, but by a certain level.

The entire project budget is $23,723, but library sets can be purchased as funding is raised, thereby making an immediate impact one grade at a time.

Now we’ll tell the reason we’re so excited about these reading libraries.

Leveled reading removes the "one size fits all" approach to reading, giving each child the opportunity to develop essential skills at his own pace. With leveled reading, a child is usually placed in a group with other children who read at roughly the same level of ability. Rather than having the entire class read the same book (which some students might find too hard and some too easy), leveled reading allows teachers to use a more personalized and precise approach to monitor a child's progress and help him learn to read.

Bam. Finally someone invented a reading program that works. For every reader. For every level. For every single child.

Rhonda Reece, a longtime DCS elementary principal says, “Children who read appropriate level books, read real literature and are able to discuss the stories with others are provided the strategies to be successful readers.”

And that’s what we’re trying to build with partners like Rotary. Strong Schools. Strong Community. Successful readers.

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