Overview / Tutoring / Mission, Principles / Results

Powerful Readers serves as the foundation of Powerful Schools' literacy strategy. The program ensures that the lowest performing first and second graders in partner schools are identified by their teachers, and provided with intensive tutoring four days a week for 28 weeks. We recruit and train tutors from the community to work individually with students on a daily basis, using a scientifically proven, field-tested curriculum to bring each student up to grade level within the school year. which 85% of our students do.

Developed in 1993, in conjunction with the Washington Research Institute, Powerful Readers is an intensive intervention program. Based on the principles of the very successful Reading Recovery program, Powerful Readers serves first grade students at the highest risk of reading failure and second-grade students who are not yet reading at grade level. In 2004-5, Powerful Readers expanded to encompass students in upper elementary grades who were still not reading at grade level.

Powerful Readers also encourages family involvement through trainings, hundreds of donated books, and by sponsoring special events, including family literacy nights -- celebrations featuring dramatic presentations, book arts, storytelling, and more.