In the area of early literacy, we created two unique and replicable strategic partnerships: (1) between CUNY Brooklyn College and Reading Rescue and (2) between Reading Rescue and the GO Project (GO).
Reading Rescue is a literacy, high dosage tutoring intervention targeting below grade-level K-2 readers. The Reading Rescue lesson plan integrates instruction on the five essential components of literacy. Throughout the lesson, students work on their phonemic awareness, phonics (decoding and encoding), fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills.
We pioneered a partnership that utilized Brooklyn College students enrolled in graduate and undergraduate early childhood literacy courses as tutors for Reading Rescue – these students were able to accomplish required fieldwork hours by tutoring struggling readers in New York City public schools. This partnership had very strong reading gains for the participating students and received significant interest from the funder community. It continues today, as part of the CUNY Reading Corps. See the Reading Rescue catalyst section for more details.
Separately, we catalyzed a partnership between GO and Reading Rescue. GO provides year-round educational and family support programs for under-resourced New York City’s public school children who are performing below grade level. At GO, the 1:1 tutoring sessions resulted in strong gains for GO’s youngest learners – all students grew at a faster rate than what was expected of them during the school year. GO continues to utilize the Reading Rescue programing on its own, without Heckscher’s continued support.
Reading Rescue | GO Project | Back to Strategic Partnerships