Student Achievement Project Report: The Junior League of Tampa, Inc. Children's Literacy Project 2005-2006

Student achievement is supported in various ways. For the past five years, the Junior League of Tampa has devoted many hours of volunteer time to encourage literacy among kindergarten students at some of the district’s most at-risk schools. Junior League members read to classes on a monthly basis. As popularity for the program has grown within the organization, additional funding has been provided to enable the volunteers to give each child a copy of each book shared during the monthly sessions for their own personal library. In addition, the League also provides “Literacy Backpacks” for each class which teachers use to check out to students to promote literacy activities at home. Information for implementing the activities at home is provided in Spanish as well as English, according to the demographics of the school.

The presentation will be made by Betsy Graham, Project Chair of the Junior League of Tampa's Literacy Project who will share a brief history of the initiative. Linda Geller, Principal of West Tampa, who is involved with the program for the second year, will describe the impact of the project, accompanied by a current first grade student who benefited from the Literacy Project last year.

Goal 1 - The percentage of students scoring at Level 3 or higher on FCAT reading will increase a minimum of 5 percentage points.

Funds for this project are provided by The Junior League of Tampa. There is no additional cost to the district.