Empowering Youth through Reading

The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported persistent inequities, with Black and Latino fourth-grade students scoring more than 20 points lower than White students in reading. Targeted interventions are key to advancing the success of students of color, which suggests a mechanism whereby resilience-building activities embedded within reading interventions contribute to greater outcomes. The primary purpose of the current study was to promote both reading fluency and resilience for historically marginalized upper elementary students of color, particularly through a mentoring program that paired college-aged mentors. Mentees participated in explicit reading fluency instruction and resilience-related activities provided by their mentors. Reading fluency was evaluated using the easyCBM assessment (Alonzo et al., 2006), and resilience was measured through the Student Resilience Survey (Lereya et al., 2016). Also, postprogram interviews were conducted. These findings underscore the value of mentoring in supporting both academic outcomes and resilience in marginalized student populations.