Bay Terraces Tutors

About Bay Terraces

Bay Terraces is a small enclave of residences and small parks in the city of San Diego. Located in what is referred to collectively as the “Southeast Bay,” Bay Terraces is easy to miss amongst the hustle of the larger city. What’s not hard to miss, however, is the high academic achievement pursued by students at Fulton Elementary School, which serves kindergarten through eighth grade. Part of what makes the students at Fulton so successful is due to the school’s partnership with Reading is Fundamental, a national organization that partners with corporations, foundations, schools, and community organizations to ensure all children have the fundamental building blocks needed to reach their highest potential.

Started in 1966 by Margaret McNamara, RIF originated as a project that would ensure Washington, DC school children could have free access to paperback books—to choose, take home, and keep as their own. RIF, under McNamara’s leadership, expanded to book mobiles to reach children outside of the classroom, partnering with the Ford Foundation just a few years after its original founding. By the 1970s, RIF was nationally recognized as a leader in fostering literacy across the United States, with a PSA spotlight done by Carol Burnett; as a result, publishers would work with the organization to offer books at a discount in places where an RIF program was in place. Since that time, RIF has enjoyed other celebrity and leadership endorsements and has set up dozens of specialized reading program in schools. Millions of books have been distributed to children in need of a culture of literacy.

Literacy is a crucial key to academic success. From a formative age, reading is an essential skill students must develop –and develop well—in order to do well in other subjects. In a world where screens, technology, the internet, and other distractions abound, reading competency has suffered nationwide. Programs such as RIF have worked tirelessly to remind students that not only is reading fundamental to their educational success, it’s also an enjoyable activity. Studies have linked high levels of literacy to high levels of empathy and increased academic performance in other subject areas. Fulton Elementary in Bay Terraces has recognized the good influence and positive work that RIF does for literacy, with many of their students recipients of the reading program’s benefits.

Grade Potential tutors also recognize the importance of literacy, especially when grades are faltering and students are losing confidence in their abilities to succeed. Those who work with clients in Bay Terraces have the unique opportunity to act as informal partners with RIF and thus encourage their students to strive for academic success with increases of literacy and information competency.