Mile High United Way: Reading Partners Colorado

Reading Partners recruits, trains, and places community volunteers into high-need schools to provide tutoring for students who are one month to two-and-a-half years behind grade level in reading and speak conversational English. Trained volunteers follow a research-based curriculum tailored to each child's needs. Reading Partners Coordinators also provide ongoing training, observations, coaching, and progress monitoring to students and community volunteers, ensuring that students are meeting their individual literacy goals.

The evaluation found that:

• Students who participated in Reading Partners during one school year had spring reading assessment scores that were significantly higher than the scores of similar students who did not participate in the program.
• For each ten additional Reading Partners tutoring sessions received, there was a significant additional increase in student reading assessment scores.

Reading Partners was particularly effective for ELL students helping them to outperform their non-ELL peers, both in and out of the program.​