Cedar Rapids named ‘pacesetter’ by national reading campaign

CEDAR RAPIDS - Thanks to its initiatives for school-aged children throughout the Corridor, Cedar Rapids has been named a trend setter as part of a national campaign for helping young families hurdle barriers in development and learning.

Cedar Rapids is one of 48 communities nationwide honored with a Pacesetter by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a network focused on helping children from low-income families bridge the achievement gap, according to the campaign's website.

The honor is given to communities for working to solve challenges that 'undermine early literacy,” a news release stated, citing school readiness, summer learning and school attendance as among the challenges.

Cedar Rapids received the award for Reading Into Success, a program that aims to ensure children across four area school districts can read proficiently by the end of third grade.

Since Reading into Success joined the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in November 2015, the program has combined the work of 25 agencies - including The Gazette companies - to improve area literacy rates, said Laura Columbus, education initiatives coordinator for Reading Into Success.

'Reading into Success is made up of about 20 partners,” Columbus said. 'Reading into Success is helping to promote the work and create awareness of the work that everybody's doing - like the Young Parent's Network, the (Cedar Rapids Public Library) - and also encouraging partnerships between them.”

Columbus said Reading into Success bases its work on the findings from a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which states that a child from a low-income family who is not a proficient reader by the end of third grade is 13 times more likely not to graduate high school on time.

'(The Pacesetter honor) is a recognition that what we're doing is benefiting our community and we're on the right path,” Columbus said. 'You always hope that, but it's nice to have some experts tell you that.”

Representatives from Cedar Rapids' literacy program formally received the honor during a ceremony held in Denver June 13-14.

Columbus said the award allowed Reading into Success to spotlight one of the program's partners, called RED Ahead, on a national scale.

RED Ahead - or Read Every Day to get Ahead - is a collaboration between the United Way of East Central Iowa and the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program - or HACAP - to offer education and early literacy services to area families, said Debbie Ackerman, RED Ahead program manager.

'If they are behind, we provide activities or referrals to help them get back on track to where they should be,” Ackerman said.

Six other cities in Iowa were recognized as pacesetters by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.

Kevin Delecki, program manager at the Cedar Rapids Public Library, said the honor also helps Reading into Success partners inform others the problem does exist in Cedar Rapids.

'Many people see these problems as big problems that are happening somewhere else,” Delecki said. 'This really helps raise awareness that there really is that many programs in this area because there's that need right here in our own background.”

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