As of September 3, 2020, The Reading Center and Urban Ventures (UV) began an exciting new partnership to serve at risk and dyslexic students of color in urban Minneapolis.
Several teachers in the UV literacy program will be trained in Orton-Gillingham through The Reading Center’s accredited Orton-Gillingham Training Institutes in 2020-21.
Through this partnership, The Reading Center will extend our reach to include more struggling students within communities of color by enhancing UV’s capacity to provide high quality Orton-Gillingham instruction in its literacy program to help UV’s students make reading gains, both dyslexic and non-dyslexic.
UV is located just south of downtown Minneapolis in the area hit hardest by civil unrest this spring. Most of the students and families served are Hispanic and Black. An important element of its programming is literacy instruction and many UV students are reading under grade level. This partnership will help more UV students bridge the gap and gain critical reading skills.
The mission of UV is to break the cycle of poverty in South Minneapolis, by supporting the whole child and whole family with a cradle to career pipeline of support, and for all of their students to attend college or post-secondary training. An important element of its programming is literacy instruction. UV has been including Orton-Gillingham approaches into its literacy program for two years, and its literacy program leader, Kendra Peterson was trained by The Reading Center in 2018.
The Reading Center’s mission is to serve the needs of people affected by dyslexia. Our motto is “Literacy for All,” and as such, we care passionately that all students receive good literacy instruction as the foundation of education. We know that dyslexia is an equal opportunity learning disability, affecting about 1:5 people regardless of race, income level or geography. Students of color are negatively affected by the achievement gap. Having dyslexia exacerbates that gap, and The Reading Center seeks to get more of its high quality reading instruction to a broader population of students.