Reading Intervention Students Honored and Celebrated
Mercer Street Friends, dedicated to strengthening local families through food, family and education services, proudly celebrated the reading advancements of students from Trenton School District’s Luis Muñoz-Rivera and Benjamin C. Gregory Elementary Schools.
Students from the Reading Intervention Program marked a successful school year of reading progress and academic growth, demonstrating their reading abilities in front of family members, friends and supporters, before receiving certificates of achievement.
Mercer Street Friends, through its nationally recognized Community Schools Initiative, provides the Reading Intervention Program to help young students gain grade level reading proficiency. A full-service Community School uses established partnerships between public schools and community organizations to provide well-rounded educational opportunities – meeting the social, emotional, physical, mental health and academic needs of students. Mercer Street Friends is the lead agency for the Community School initiative in the Trenton Public School District.
As part of the Reading Intervention program, dedicated educators meet with small groups of students four times per week for 30 minutes to concentrate on phonetics, reading comprehension, inferencing, predicting, character traits and other reading skills. As students mature in their skills, the program focuses on cause and effect, sequencing and higher order thinking questions for comprehension.
In the Trenton Public School System, fewer than 12% of students are reading at grade-level proficiency compared to their peers across the state, according to U.S. News & World Report. The Reading Intervention Program works to change that number, and 125 students took part in the program this year.
“The most rewarding aspect of the Reading Intervention Program is seeing it open doors for students as their literacy skills grow,” said Bernie Flynn, CEO of Mercer Street Friends. “Empowering students to take ownership of their educational journeys is a source of great pride for all of us at Mercer Street Friends. We are deeply grateful to supporters such as New Jersey Golf for their generous support of this program, and to the Princeton Area Community Foundation for serving as the program’s seed funder. Without their continued backing, the profound impact this program has on students and their academic development would not be possible.”
“We’re proud to champion the Reading Intervention program and inspired by the meaningful impact it continues to make,” said Frank O’Brien, Chairman of the New Jersey Golf Youth Foundation. “By equipping young minds with essential literacy skills, Mercer Street Friends is helping open doors to brighter futures and lifelong success.”
To learn more about Mercer Street Friends, the Community Schools Initiative and the Reading Intervention Program, visit www.mercerstreetfriends.org/education/.
About Mercer Street Friends
As a Quaker-affiliated, nonsectarian 501(c)(3) organization, Mercer Street Friends is dedicated to nourishing minds and bodies, empowering families and communities by providing comprehensive programs to address poverty and the physical and emotional trauma it creates for children, families and the community. Their work is focused on three critical areas: food, families and education. To learn more about Mercer Street Friends, visit www.mercerstreetfriends.org.
