The Wonder of Reading is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to inspire in children the love of reading. Our mission is to have a significant impact on reading in Southern California elementary schools.
The Wonder of Reading furthers its purpose through the 3R Program—Renovate, Restock, and Read. First, we renovate a public elementary school’s library, making it more useful and more inviting to young students. We expand library space to include story steps for group reading, individual work stations for tutoring, and a cove for quiet reading. Second, the school restocks the library's collection with $10,000 worth of new books. Finally, the school recruits and we train volunteers to read one-on-one with students who are struggling readers. Volunteers read with their students for one hour a week during the school day for the entire school year.
THE PROBLEM
Many public elementary school library facilities in Southern California have been neglected for decades. The statistics on elementary school libraries and reading are shocking: the average nonfiction public school library book in the Los Angeles Unified School District was published more than 15 years ago; California 4th-graders rank 49th in the nation in reading skills; and in some school libraries, there are actually books on the shelves that read: “One day man will go to the moon.”
THE SOLUTION
The Wonder of Reading is providing a new solution to an old problem. By the end of 2007, as a result of implementing the 3R Program (Renovate, Restock, and Read) with our school partners, The Wonder of Reading has successfully renovated 187 libraries, overseen the purchase of more than $2,000,000 worth of new books, and trained nearly 5,000 volunteers to read with students on a weekly basis. The Wonder of Reading focuses on Los Angeles’s most disadvantaged children, and by year’s end we reached more than 300,000 young students. The 3R Program not only benefits today’s students: it puts in place resources that teachers and students can count on for years to come.
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