'Read Today' students celebrate growth at Bees baseball game


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SALT LAKE CITY — Orange foam fingers waved from the stands at the Salt Lake Bees game. Kids not only cheered for the players up to bat but their own reading achievements that earned them tickets to the game in the first place.

"Yes! We're readers," yelled the group in Section 21.

Read Today Night at the Bees rewarded students who made growth in KSL's reading tutoring program, students like Bianca Salgado, who is leaving McPolin Elementary and headed to Ecker Middle School.

"It was hard for me," she said. "I didn't know how to read well."

But by reading every week with her Read Today AmeriCorps tutor, she doubled her expected progress in reading. And now, she's making the transition to middle school with confidence.

"She'll be able to fit in nicely and be in the top of her class," said Amber Siddoway, AmeriCorps member, "whereas before, she was lower."

Bianca is one of 4,700 Utah students who are catching up in reading by working with individual volunteers who come from communities, businesses, churches, Latinos in Action and PTA.

They use the State Office of Education's STAR tutoring program.

And the results are impressive. Year-end Dibels scores, words correct per minute, show students in every grade making above average growth. And in some grades, students doubled and tripled expected growth.

The army of tutors contributed about $1.8 million worth of added help to our schools and students in need.

Gloria Skanchy, program director of Read, Graduate, Succeed, which oversees the tutoring said, "These students are just enough behind that with an added push, that with a supportive tutor, a quality program can get them back on track so their life from this point on can be successful."

Bianca believes she will reflect that success as she moves away from her beloved elementary school into a bustling junior high.

And as the waving orange thumbs attest, that confidence is something worth celebrating. Deanie Wimmer anchors KSL News and helps lead the Read Today program. Contact her at deanie.wimmer@ksl.com.

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Nadine Wimmer

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