Our non-profit is an outgrowth of the student - led literacy campaign, Hooked on Books, and the NM Alliance for Literacy created by Santa Fe middle school students and their teacher, Rayna Dineen at Santa Fe School for the Arts & Sciences and local high school students in 2012.
Hooked on Books students helped create the ‘Reading is Magic’ Summer Program which trains and hires teens and master reading specialists for intensive summer reading programs for students who are 1-2 years below grade level in reading. During the past ten summers, our campers have made, on average, slightly more than one year's growth during each two-week camp session, as measured by a standardized reading assessment.
Young children are particularly motivated when teenagers are reading with them and encouraging them to persevere and work hard. We train teen tutors using multi-sensory hands-on, phonics-based strategies for our Reading Quest Tutoring Center, community service outreach, and Reading is Magic work opportunities.
We tutor 440 students a week, all of whom are referred by their teachers and in collaboration with Santa Fe and West Las Vegas Public Schools, Native American Student Services, Cochiti Elementary School and Turquoise Trail Charter School, Communities in Schools and Adelante program for homeless youth. We have Reading Quest classrooms in several Title 1 schools on the south side of Santa Fe and in two schools in West Las Vegas. and at Turquoise Trail Charter School and Cochiti Pueblo. We provide ESL classes for recent refugee families from Afghanistan, in addition to a weekly Afghan children's program and individual weekly tutoring for refugee children. We also provide free training in teaching reading for local schools, volunteer tutors, teachers, and parents.
We would like to thank our partner Meow Wolffor this beautiful video of our work. The RQ team