Two out of every three fourth-graders in America score below the proficiency level in reading, and 83 percent of fourth-graders from low-income families cannot read at grade level. Without intervention, guidance, tutoring and help from all of us, these children may remain functionally illiterate.

In San Diego County, according to Children Now, only about half of our own fourth-graders can read at grade level. And, with governmental budget shortfalls, teachers are expected to do more with less.

Community HousingWorks (CHW) began the Running Readers program to give the thousands of parents and kids who live in our affordable apartment communities the chance to beat those odds. We are proud to be part of a broad effort by United Way of San Diego County to improve early-grade literacy — not only for children, but also for the health and benefit of society as a whole.

When parents and kids have the stability of an affordable apartment, plus CHW’s tutoring, homework help, Running Readers and scholarships, the odds can change. Over a recent three-month period, CHW hosted 168 children in after-school reading circles, thanks to dozens of volunteers; 784 residents participated in Family Reading Nights; and 174 books were distributed.

CHW's AmeriCorps VISTA, Kelly Kean, has been instrumental to ensuring the continued success of the Running Readers Program. She has been creating the lesson plans and preparing and arranging the materials for our 18 Learning Centers throughout the county who are running the program. She also largely helped with recruiting and training volunteers, as well as implementing an online volunteer tracking software. Kelly has organized and prepared over 35 lesson plans - writing activities, gathering materials, and making the program easy to run. Lesson plans include an outdoor running activity, vocabulary activities, comprehension questions for the lesson’s book, reading or craft activities related to the book, and journal prompts. Not only is she writing the lesson plans and preparing the materials, but Kelly is organizing the system for all of our learning centers. We have seen the great impact the Running Readers program has on kids who participate, who are constantly improving reading levels and learning to love reading.