NC West Virginia News

The West Virginia Public Education Collaborative (WVPEC), housed at West Virginia University, is allocating over $260,000 to six new statewide literacy projects aimed at enhancing young learners' reading, writing, and oral language skills. This initiative comes in response to the 2023-24 statewide English language arts assessment scores, which revealed that only 47% of third graders in West Virginia achieved reading proficiency.

The Sparking Early Literacy Growth program, now in its third year and commissioned by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, seeks to address this issue by targeting high-need students across the state. Each selected project will receive up to $50,000 and will focus on remote, rural, or critical areas.

"All West Virginia students deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential in the classroom and in the workforce, and that starts with making sure they have the literacy skills for lifelong success," said WVPEC Executive Director Donna Hoylman Peduto. She added that each project aims to creatively address local literacy challenges while engaging students, teachers, and families.

A team of statewide literacy experts conducted a rigorous review process for numerous proposals. Of the selected projects, five are funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and one by the EQT Foundation. The total funding amounts to $264,000.

Grants from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation were awarded to:

- Huntington Children’s Museum: Building Literacy through Museum Engagement

- June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development at Marshall University: Speech, Literacy, Play (SLP): Immersive Play-Based Strategies that Promote Language and Pre-Literacy Acquisition in Early Childhood Settings

- Raleigh County Schools: Empowering Young Minds: A Vocabulary Voyage for Academic Success

- Suncrest Elementary School: Building Bridges to Literacy: Enhancing Book Selection to Engage Reluctant Readers

- WVU Energy Express: Energy Express Supports Literacy Leadership Through Action Research

The EQT Foundation grant was awarded to Wheeling Country Day School for its Structured Literacy Intervention Professional Learning Community for Private Schools.

Melanie Claxton, senior program officer at Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation stated, "Access to high-quality early literacy instruction can be transformational for young learners and essential to their future success." She emphasized that the foundation's investment aims at promoting innovative approaches to systemic issues like foundational early literacy skill development through sustainable cross-sector partnerships.

Further information on each Sparking Early Literacy Growth project is available online.