Reading Partners Tulsa reaches 36% more students, empowering children and communities to thrive

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Brenna Peterson

Senior External Relations Manager, Reading Partners Tulsa

(713) 208-9694 | brenna.peterson@readingpartners.org

Local nonprofit’s 2021-22 impact results show critical support for students, schools, and communities

TULSA, Okla. – September 19, 2022  — As highlighted over the weekend on Good Morning America, Reading Partners has continued to provide critical literacy support to students, schools, and communities despite COVID-19 variants having created major disruptions in schools. In fact, the nonprofit provided literacy tutoring to 36% more Tulsa-area students in the 2021-22 school year than the year before.

“The previous years of school interruptions have impacted the already existing inequitable educational opportunities for students. At Reading Partners, we provide high-quality individualized literacy instruction for students in the Tulsa community that transforms lives.” – Robin Emerson, Reading Partners Tulsa Interim Executive Director

2021-22 results show that Reading Partners continued to positively impact students

Each year, Reading Partners publishes reports highlighting student performance for the national organization and for each of its 12 respective regions across the country. The Impact & Innovation reports for the 2021-22 school year have recently been posted on readingpartners.org and include the following highlights in Tulsa.

• 863 students received 12+ sessions of one-on-one tutoring

• 26,223 total tutoring sessions were delivered to those same students

• 15% of sessions were delivered online via Reading Partners Connects

• 872 community tutors supported students

• 98% of volunteers were satisfied with their experience

• 2,167 additional students received take-home books and literacy packets

• Learn more about Reading Partners’ impact in Tulsa here.

• Learn about Reading Partners’ national impact here.

In addition to reaching a lot of students, Reading Partners Tulsa achieved impressive student performance. In 2021-22, 70% of all Reading Partners students finished the year meeting or exceeding their primary end-of-year literacy growth goals, while 70% of K-2 Reading Partners students were developing mastery of key foundational reading skills needed to read and grade level.

“We’ve continued to see positive outcomes. Last school year, 89% of the students involved in Reading Partners experienced measurable growth.” – Courtney Rodebush, Reading Partners Tulsa Program Director.

Heading into the new school year, Reading Partners Tulsa anticipates needing approximately 1,300 community volunteers to support students’ literacy development. Follow this link if you’re interested in investing one hour a week to help empower a student through reading.

Reading Partners also gets help from AmeriCorps members to train and provide ongoing support to literacy volunteers. Please follow this link if you’re interested in becoming an AmeriCorps member at Reading Partners.

A volunteer tutor and a student in a reading center engaging in Reading Partners’ traditional tutoring program (Photo Credit: Reading Partners)

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About Reading Partners

For over 20 years, Reading Partners has helped empower students to succeed in school and beyond by engaging community volunteers to provide proven, one-on-one literacy tutoring. Since its founding, the national nonprofit organization has mobilized over 75,000 community volunteers to provide more than 2.5 million individualized literacy tutoring sessions to more than 70,000 elementary school students in nearly 470 under-resourced schools across ten states and the District of Columbia. Visit readingpartners.org to learn more about our program impact and our Reading Partners Connects online program innovation, or connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Reading Partners is a proud AmeriCorps service partner and has been endorsed by The New York Times.