ROCKFORD — United Way Rock River Valley on Tuesday unveiled the next chapter of its effort to improve childhood literacy rates across Winnebago County.
The new phase of United for Literacy centers around an increased collaboration with Harlem School District and Rockford Public Schools, additional community volunteers working with networks of parents, efforts to decrease school absences and an ambitious goal to make sure every first grader struggling with reading has a literacy mentor to support their classroom success.
“We’ve gone from this foundation of working primarily in the space of birth to 5 years old, and that’s great and we’re going to keep doing that, but now we need to build this,” said Jessica Iasparro, director of community impact for United Way. “We need to figure out how we have meaningful support of our public schools, how we have meaningful support of parent leadership, how we really, actually involve the community.”…