WHO IS R2M?
 Read 2 Me came from the merging of two
organizations: Werlin Reading Teams Foundation and Pierce County Reading
Foundation. Together we have become a program which strives to enrich lives by
inspiring people to volunteer and share in the joy of reading. We advocate for
and create opportunities, beginning at birth, which nurture lifelong learners in
the communities we serve.
Our vision is to create a literate world. One child at a time, we work within
the community with parents, caregivers, and children to promote the message of
reading success, and support the school systems efforts for every child to reach
benchmark reading goals by the time they enter fourth grade.
ABOUT R2M.
The longest running, most successful
tutoring
program in the United States,
Read 2 Me began in 1988 when a
Franciscan
Hospital executive provided
fifty
volunteers to help with reading
at a local elementary school.
Known as SMART as its outset, the
program emphasized tutoring/
mentoring
within the Tacoma
Public Schools and
changed its
name to Werlin Reading several
years later. As a result of a
merger with
the Pierce County
Reading Foundation, whose focus
was on early literacy, the program
is now
known as Read 2 Me.
Since its inception, Read 2 Me has helped over 8,500 children, utilizes
nearly 1000 community volunteers on an annual basis and has expanded to nearly
half of all elementary schools in Tacoma. Over the next twelve months, Read 2
Me will expand into schools in greater Pierce County.EARLY LITERACY.
It is never too early to read to a child.
Even infants benefit from the voices and sounds
they hear during the first part of their lives.
Read 2 Me believes that all children
should be exposed to books at a very early age
because when children listen to stories, they
gain important language skills.
Reading aloud for at least twenty minutes per
day with children helps them learn new words and
understand written language as they begin to
discover the world around them.
TUTORING / MENTORING.
It is amazing how spending just 45 minutes a
week with a child can change their lives so
profoundly. Yet, we hear it from parents,
teachers and tutors every year. The time that
Read 2 Me volunteers give these students is
the little extra nudge they need to go from
struggling with letters to reading books in just
one school year.
For most of them, it is a chance at a better
future. For all of us, it is a chance for a
better world.
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