PressFriends

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The Problem

Literacy is a critical issue in our country and our community. In Los Angeles County, the literacy rate is approximately 33% (see http://nces.ed.gov/naal/estimates/StateEstimates.aspx). Another issue is the lack of afterschool programs. The Afterschool Alliance concludes that "afterschool programs not only keep kids safe, they also help improve students’ academic performance, school attendance, behavior and health, and support working families" (http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/researchFactSheets.cfm).

Plan of Action

PressFriends holds over 60 student-run mentoring sessions a year. We have trained over 300 middle and high school volunteers, who work with disadvantaged fourth and fifth graders in afterschool or weekend newspaper clubs. We use editorial guidelines that break down the 5W and 1H (who, what, why, where, when and how) for each type of article a student might want to write (e.g., news, sports, movie reviews, book reviews, etc.). These editorial guidelines make writing fun and make mentoring easy. We also use a lot of games to teach writing techniques as well as to make the sessions fun. Since 2008, we have mentored over 1500 disadvantaged youth, published 80 newspapers, and printed over 40,000 copies of those newspapers.

For More Info

PressFriends - www.pressfriends.org
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Education

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