One Hour Matters

Reading Pals Lifts Literacy Across the North State…

The people of Reading Pals have uncovered a great truth in education: pair young people on the cusp of being proficient readers with adult volunteers and watch reading abilities soar. It takes only one hour a week over the course of a school year to see significant literacy gains for program participants.\

A core concept in learning is that after third grade, a lot of knowledge is accessed by reading. That means it’s mission critical that young people have strong literacy skills before moving beyond that marker. Students below grade level tend to continually fall behind when they can’t grasp the lessons ahead.

Reading Pals, a program co-developed by Michelle Curran in 2010, has spread to 32 sites across the North State and has recently been adopted by the Shasta County Office of Education to great success, with 75 trained volunteers. It’s not uncommon for Reading Pals students to show a year of literacy advancement in only four months. Most students are in second and third grade, but may also be in first or fourth, depending on the need.

The program was started in response to concerns over low literacy rates in Chico that are also seen throughout the North State. Local Rotarians championed the initiative, which has become more refined and user-friendly over time, to the point where volunteers can quickly and easily engage with a curriculum prepared for the reading level of the student with whom they are paired.

“When you walk into our library, you can feel the magic,” says Tamarie Ackernecht, site literacy teacher at Alta Mesa Elementary in Redding. She has 11 volunteers working with two students twice a week and says the energy changes when the program starts. “The little kids are just running in to hug them,” she says. “You can feel that positive energy as soon as you walk through the door.”

“You have to see it in action,” says Holly King, literacy coordinator at Shasta County Office of Education. King had watched a documentary about childhood illiteracy called “Sentenced,” produced by Stephen Curry, and took note that the Reading Pals program was mentioned as a resource by someone in the group chat as she watched. She began researching the organization and developed a quick rapport with Curran, who was eager to share resources. Financial support came from the Shasta County Board of Education’s Literacy Initiative and Reach Higher Shasta’s Literacy Initiative.

After a successful soft launch in spring semester 2025 at two schools, the program had an official launch in Redding with a special screening of “Sentenced” at the Cascade in September this year, where most volunteers signed up.

“Reading Pals is a framework to engage. It’s also a really fun way to bring the village back together,” she adds, noting that volunteers have ranged from 13-95. “This is volunteering as an investment.”

“It’s really important that the community doesn’t think it’s all up to teachers,” says Laura Manuel, a volunteer Reading Pal and Literacy Initiative Chair of the Shasta County Board of Education. Manuel was quick to realize that the benefits of her volunteer work go both ways and that she walks away from sessions more energized. “The program is very scripted, but the kids are completely unscripted,” she says with a laugh. “I just love these conversations. The kids get something out of it, but the volunteers really do, too.”

Lael Barlow is the Coordinator of Shasta County Reading Pals and says the process of becoming a volunteer is straightforward and involves a Livescan background check as well as an orientation on the science of learning, local literacy statistics and an introduction to the reading materials. Materials are selected to be challenging, but achievable for each learner.

Barlow has trained volunteers of all ages and makes special note of a family volunteering together as parents and older teenagers. Ackernecht notes that she has an 85-year-old reading with her students, while Curran speaks of students at an alternative high school seeing their own grades increase while volunteering with young students in Chico. “They come from all walks of life,” says Ackernecht. “They’re fun. Most volunteers started out one day a week and have increased to two days a week.”

Reading Pals has been around long enough in Chico that it can tell the story of a high school civics teacher in the community who started out as a fifth grader with a Reading Pal of his own because he was at a second-grade reading level. In three months of individualized support, he gained three years of literacy proficiency. Seven years later, he wrote a scholarship essay about the critical time with his Reading Pal and the difference it made in his life.

“The core of the program is really the relationships,” says Curran. Both she and King are ready to facilitate more in their respective communities. •

To volunteer as a Reading Pal:
In Chico:
www.readingpalschico.org
In Shasta County:
Email hking@shastacoe.org
In Red Bluff and Corning:
readingpalscorning@gmail.com