As school administrators and non-profit leaders continue to discuss strategies to improve reading in the county, they have chosen to focus their efforts around early interventions that overcome environmental barriers while vertically aligning programs directed at children from birth to fifth grade.
- Smart Start’s Parents as Teachers Program receives grant funding from the Davie Community Foundation to provide in-home visits with a parent educator for families with children from birth to five years old.
- Mebane Charitable Foundation granted funds for a Summer Preschool Camp for 3 and 4 year-old children during the summers of 2015 and 2016. Assistance with selection of camp attendees was provided by Smart Start’s Parent Educator.
- Davie Community Foundation, Mebane Charitable Foundation and the County of Davie joined together to awards monies in support of the Healthy Davie Preschool Project to help underserved and economically disadvantaged four-year-old children gain access to a high quality preschool program.
- The Davie Community Foundation made grants for a Kinder Camp in all six elementary schools. More than 100 children were given the opportunity to get to know their schools, learn some daily routines and get a start in their “Letter Land” adventures.
- Summer Reading Camps have received grants from the Davie Community Foundation for more than ten years. The camps are unique to each school but the goal is consistent, stop the reading regression that happens during the summer with at-risk children.
- Additional dollars were awarded to Cooleemee Elementary in 2016 for the purchase of graphic novels. The strategy behind the book purchase is to engage struggling readers in a book series that begin in an easy to read format. Once they are engaged in the series and their reading improves, the children can move into more difficult versions of the books.
- Third grade children who do not meet specific testing benchmarks are now required to attend a summer camp. Thanks to a grant from the Mebane Charitable Foundation, Davie County Schools hosted a Read to Achieve Camp. Read to Achieve embraces creativity in learning to produce strong readers and confident learners.
- STEM Camps at Mocksville Elementary School and at the middle school level received grant monies from the Davie Community Foundation and the Mebane Charitable Foundation. These camps give students the opportunity to engage in problem-based learning and collaboration to practice 21st Century skills.
