Many kids are back in school and learning to read at a young age. However officials say less than 50 percent of third graders in Northern Nevada are reading at the grade level they should be.

That's why United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra launched the Northern Nevada Grade-Level reading coalition.

The company's CEO Michael Brazier said, "Reading is one of the most important things and critical in the lives of our youngest learners. So what we found is that kids who aren't reading at grade level, the more they're likely to drop out of high school, and the more it can impact their future career and success."

The organizations goal is to help children enter kindergarten ready to learn and support grade-level reading by the end of third grade. 

 

The Reading Coalition has targeted its energies in several key directions:

  • Focusing on early childhood education from birth to five years old. Children who enter kindergarten with poor early literacy skills tend to be poor readers in first grade and even into high school.
  • Engaging parents and families through various programs to help their children with early literacy skills such as vocabulary, knowledge of the alphabet, and interest in stories. This also includes generating financial support for early childhood literacy programs for low to moderate-income children ages three to five to help them better prepare for kindergarten.
  • Improving attendance in the classroom and in literacy-focused out-of-school activities.
  • Making summer a rich time for reading at home by providing books, reading materials and library cards.

Brazier said, "United Way of Northern Nevada and Sierra's mission is to link the communities will and resources to improve lives, and we really do this by engaging the community in all of our processes. We listen to the community to find the issue, then we engage the community for the solution of the issue as well. So like, what's really important about United Way is that we're not just the ones that are funding our programs and deciding where the money goes; we have a group of volunteers that actually review any time we push money out onto the community. They review those grants and they make those decisions. So we really are empowering the community to help solve the communities most pressing issues."

The organization was recently recognized as the only Nevada organization out of 32 communities across the country, with a national prestigious award for their ongoing support for early success.

If anyone needs help finding resources, you can visit https://www.uwnns.org or https://www.nevada211.org/ 

(United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra contributed to this report.)