Achieve Academy Summer Literacy Programming
I'm a college volunteer helping the wonderful teachers at Achieve Academy in Fruitvale continue their summer learning programs remotely during the COVID-19 crisis. A charter school in Oakland, Achieve Academy serves a unique population of low-income and often non-English speaking students. The kindergarten teachers at the school recognized that if their students had no exposure to English over the summer they would lose the skills they built, and their growth and development would be stunted. This program provides free educational programming via Zoom over 7+ weeks to help 100 bilingual, low-income kindergartners continue to practice their reading and writing skills so they do not get lost in a quarantined summer. Trained college and high-school volunteers get paired one on one with a kindergartner and read, write, and speak with them in English to help them practice and develop their skills. This also provides a form of childcare, seeing as that time slot allows parents to work without distraction regularly throughout the week. All in all, this project fills a gap in education that helps disadvantaged children get a head start on their growth and development through remote learning.