Mar 19, 2024
Reading skills unlock the world for us and unleash not just our curiosity, but grant us and gift us the power to often choose our paths.
My two guests today know this all too well as their passion for helping kids learn to read began as a young married couple when they joined a USC alumni program reading with students every week at the USC “School of Five” inner-city elementary schools. They quickly became aware of the alarming number of students who were reading below grade level. It was then that the seeds of the positive impact on literacy were planted. Initially focusing on child development, J3 Foundation was born, eventually after the birth of their daughter, Jess, and iterated into a robust reading program in 2018 called J3s Cozy Reading Club, which focuses on the most vulnerable 4th graders in Los Angeles. This program has been so successful that it has expanded from a single pilot program to 16 schools and serves students during the school day and as part of their after-school reading program.
J3 Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to give kids the foundation they need for a lifetime of reading success.
They strive to equip 4th graders in communities with fewer resources with the tools they need to help them reach grade level literacy and foster a multitude of things: positive self-image, self confidence, a supportive community, a new love of reading, and so importantly acquiring an identity of a reader.
For children in communities that lack resources, their free reading programs build good study habits, reading skills, and self-confidence, and I’d like to personally add opening up whole new worlds for each child.
Their free reading program brings together individualized evidence-based lessons with measurable outcomes, a low staff-to-student ratio, culturally relevant books, and community involvement to support reading progress in school and beyond. And it sounds FUN!
For more information, please visit their website: www.j3foundation.org