United Way of Santa Barbara County (UWSBC) is committed to helping students and teachers address summer learning loss and the achievement gap. During the summer months UWSBC offers the Virtual Summer Reading Camp to parents and students which allows participants to sharpen their literacy skills. Partnering with local schools in Santa Barbara County, parents and students are able to utilize UWSBC's Power Reading tools to master their foundational literacy skills so they can develop their fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. This summer, UWSBC partnered with 9 schools throughout Santa Barbara County and had over 150 participants working on their literacy for 8 consecutive weeks. Many of the participants achieved outstanding progress in literacy, including Joan Villafana (right).
Jack Gerend (left) from Oak Valley Elementary School, and Joan Villafana from Harding Elementary School each mastered over 3 Lexia levels (equivalent to 1.25 years of literacy skills), working over 1,000 minutes on Lexia Reading Core5. One of our winners Jack Gerend said about Lexia Reading Core5, "Lexia makes learning fun. I like that I travel to different places and learning about those places, I also liked the reading!!" United Way's Virtual Summer Reading Program empowers students to take control over their learning during the summer months to combat summer learning loss. These two hard working students received awards, such as an iPod or tickets to Knott's Berry Farm, from UWSBC to reward their hard work and achievement over the summer months!