The Patrick Beaver Learning Resource Center is about to begin its 20^th year of serving students with learning differences in Catawba County.

Here are highlights from our recent work:

• In the past four years, we have grown from serving 7 children with 6 tutors in 4 schools to tutoring nearly 50 students with 30 tutors in 16 schools throughout Catawba County—from Longview to Sherrills Ford.
• Last school year, our trained tutors provided 1,500+ hours of lessons in reading, writing and spelling to struggling readers from low-income families.
• From pretest to posttest, our Augustine students read an average of 22 words per minute faster, while increasing their accuracy by 25% and their comprehension by 59%.
• We have trained 54 teachers in the Orton-Gillingham approach to teaching reading. These teachers are better equipped to recognize and remediate reading problems, and they are helping more children become successful readers.
• Our LIFT (Learning is Fun Together) family literacy enrichment program has served over 750 parents and children in three schools and encouraged students to spend more time reading at home.

Our goals for the next five years include:

• Place more than one Augustine Literacy Project tutor in each of the 24 elementary schools in Catawba County.
• Train multiple teachers in the Orton-Gillingham approach from each elementary school.
• Identify and remediate reading problems earlier in children from kindergarten to 2^nd
• Increase parent awareness of reading problems and give them skills to help their children at home.
• Enable more children to reach reading proficiency by third grade.

You can help us start our twentieth year strong. Donate or become a volunteer tutor.  For more information, email info@patrickbeaverlrc.org or call 828-624-2012.

Happy New Year!

Angela Lawrence

Executive Director