Palmetto Literacy Council

To improve the literacy of youth and adults in our community by teaching basic literacy skills or those who struggle with basic reading, writing, and/or math. Our students (5 years old and up) meet two hours each week with their tutor. School-aged students meet one hour, twice a week. Most sessions are held in the public libraries nearest our students. Our volunteers are trained and have passed a criminal background check. Volunteers are required to attend a Volunteer Orientation and Training session, this is being done online through the Zoom application. We provide our tutors all of the materials they need. We pair the tutor with a student based on need and location. Our tutors provide the tutoring sessions at the nearest library. There are 10 Horry County Libraries and the Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach.

History: We opened our doors on August 1, 2019 and provide tutoring for children and adults who struggle with basic reading, writing and/or math. Students work with tutors one-on-one twice a week during the entire year.

Goals:

1. Improve literacy rates in Horry County, South Carolina
2. Increase the number of students (adults and children) we provide services to 100.
3. Increase the number of volunteers (tutors and administrative) who help us provide services to 125.

Programs: All of our programs are designed to meet the needs of the individual learner.

We provide reading/writing programs from the levels of Kindergarten (beginning reading) to Grade 6. All of our reading programs focus on comprehension skills and vocabulary (word recognition Grade Kindergarten and Grade 1).

We have a variety of math programs that are dependent on the needs of the students.

Achievements:

We have several school-age students who have "graduated" from our program. They are "caught-up" and reading at grade level in school.

We have been supported by the Chapin Foundation and many other national, regional and local funders.