We all know prevention beats intervention. In preventing poverty, violence and crime, one factor is all-powerful: Education. One factor predicts school success better than all others: Grade 3 reading. If you’re not reading by Grade 3, you are four times more likely to miss graduating on time, making it harder to move on to post-secondary and a job that will support a family. Why?

Kids have four short years to become proficient readers. Teachers do the best they can to teach reading by Grade 3, but classes are big and resources limited. Then in Grade 4, the curriculum switches from learning to read to reading to learn. If you’re not reading by the switch, the challenges snowball. By fifth grade you’re a year behind. By ninth, you’re two years behind and unlikely to graduate from high school.

On October 15, 2019 United Way Regina officially became part of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading (CGLR) Network. Regina is the second Canadian city to join the network, after Calgary. The CGLR is a collaborative effort to improve reading proficiency and early school success for children, particularly from low-income families.

We are thrilled at the success of our hard work throughout year one of our campaign which has earned us the recognition of a ‘Bright Spot Community’ by the Campaign For Grade Level Reading. Bright Spot Communitites are those communities that developed exemplary or innovative responses to the COVID crisis, including new or adaptive roles, programs, organizational relationships/collaborations, policies and/or resources. In particular, the Campaign is recognizing communities for crafting solutions that seem especially effective, replication-worthy and/or deserving of being sustained during the post-COVID period, and Regina is honoured to receive this recognition.