Our Mission
Read Alliance works to improve the educational trajectory of underserved, early elementary students through one-to-one tutoring in foundational reading skills.
Our Dual Impact
Read Alliance provides students with the building blocks to academic success. While early literacy remains at the core of our mission, our unique model also employs teens to tutor their younger peers, tackling a secondary challenge of youth unemployment, particularly among low-income, minority teens.
Benefits for Students
READ students receive the one-to-one support they require to catch up to their peers.
Benefits for Tutors
READ tutors build college and career skills such as time management, organization and communication.
Our Model
Read Alliance believes that success starts early.
We provide early literacy intervention to K-2nd graders in public and charter schools and community based organizations in all five boroughs in NYC through our School Year and Summer Reading Programs. Our near-peer tutoring model employs teens from the same communities as our students to deliver our proven intervention model.
Teen tutors are trained in our leveled curriculum (Reading for All Learners Program), data collection and behavior management. We pay our tutors minimum wage, provide training and continuous support, and offer the opportunity for promotion to Lead Tutor, a leadership role in the classroom.
Our School Year and Summer Reading Programs provide 45 sessions of one-to-one tutoring. Each session also incorporates two read alouds to build confidence and create a positive reading environment and a lending library to allow students to take books home and encourage practicing their skills outside of the program.
Read Alliance Programming impacts thousands of children and teens every year
Each student and tutor we serve has a different story. Learn about the individual impact we have on kids and teens below:
Elijah used to hide under his desk when he was asked to read. Because of the READ program, he caught up to his peers and now he can experience the joy of reading.
When Trevor was younger, he was fortunate to have a mentor help him through school. As a READ tutor, Trevor wanted to be that same positive influence for his younger peers.