Episode 10 of the INK! Podcast has dropped and it’s FLY!
In this episode, Ian MacDonald and Jim Wheeler speak with Mary Alice Hayes, INK!’s Five Learning Years (FLY) Program Director about the importance of literacy success for our youngest students in Pre-K, Kindergarten and First grade. Since 2015, the FLY Program has helped close the literacy gap for young striving readers throughout St. Johns County. The FLY program boasts great success year over year helping to strengthen the literacy skills of our youngest readers and reduce the literacy gap between FLY students and their peers.
INK! recruits retired educators with experience in early education (PreK to 5th) to support and tutor students in the FLY Program. In addition to their robust professional backgrounds, FLY Tutors train extensively on the curriculum programs employed in FLY intervention. Tutors work in small groups of 4 to 5 students in Pre-K and Kindergarten and with 1 or 2 students in First grade supporting the learning taking place in the classroom.
Learn more about the FLY Program, its success and how you can help support a striving reader here.
UF Lastinger Center for Learning & New Worlds Reading Initiative
This school year, INK! was selected to support the New Worlds Reading Initiative as a partner agency in St. Johns County. New Worlds Reading is a FREE Florida program administered by the University of Florida Lastinger Center for Learning to help children discover the power of their imagination through a love of reading.
The UF Lastinger Center for Learning is the state-appointed administrator for the New Worlds Reading Initiative. As a department of the University of Florida College of Education, the Lastinger Center improves the quality of teaching, learning, and childcare. By researching, developing and scaling educational innovations for adults and children, the center strives to put all learners on trajectories for lifelong success. Learn more at: www.newworldsreading.com.
