The Indy Learning Team

At East 10th Street UMC Preschool, four-year-olds are reading words. Not just recognizing letters — actually reading. And it happened in a single school year, with just ten minutes of targeted instruction a day. The preschool's director didn't set out to overhaul her literacy approach. She started from a familiar place: there isn't room for one more thing. "I often think I can't take on a new initiative because we're already doing so much," she said. "What I appreciate about Adira Reads is...

Reading growth isn’t one thing. It’s a chain, and every link matters. When a kindergartner truly masters letter names and sounds, first grade doesn’t spend the year re-teaching what should already be there — it builds. When first grade builds, second grade reaches for fluency. And when second grade reaches fluency, third grade becomes the year a child reads to learn, instead of struggling to learn to read. Break a link in kindergarten, and you spend years trying to weld it back together....