We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mandy Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mandy below.
Hi Mandy, thanks for joining us today. How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?
When I walked into my first public middle school classroom, I quickly realized my bright students could not read, spell, or write anywhere near grade level even though it was easy to see they were intelligent and otherwise capable of becoming successful adults. They felt discouraged and frustrated with academics. That realization propelled my quest to learn how to teach them to become literate, so they could experience success throughout life. Today, while tutoring students or while providing professional development to colleagues across Florida and the USA as well as to our team at Love 2 Read, Inc., we share the joy of our literacy learning partnership.
Love 2 Read, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, had been a neglected dream until one afternoon in January or February 2020, after a tutoring session with their daughter, Madeline, John and Andrea Adams asked me, “Ms. Mandy, wouldn’t it be great to start a nonprofit to try to help every student receive this kind of instruction?” Thus, Love 2 Read, Inc. was established with the mission to provide access to students who need specialized tutoring instruction in order to learn to read. The founding board of directors was invited to serve and we began tutoring students on a sliding fee basis. Our tutoring team leaders are among my most trusted colleagues. They are among the most highly respected experts in literacy instruction in southeast Florida. The type of tutoring we provide is usually very expensive; we are striving to remove barriers so more children and youth will receive the tutoring they need in order to achieve success in life. We love sharing the journey this mission sets before us!
Mandy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Love 2 Read, Inc. is a young nonprofit tutoring organization whose mission is to help students who struggle with reading and require specialized literacy instruction. Our vision is to remove barriers for children and youth whose families cannot afford what would normally be very expensive tutoring. Our team is led by expert educators, instructional coaches, and professional developers who mentor new tutors in service of students who are underserved. We slide our fees for the sake of students who face obstacles to receiving tutoring. Five of our educators are cross-trained in programs recognized for following the Science of Reading and the Structured Literacy Approach, four of us serve on the Board of Directors of the International Dyslexia Association-Florida Branch, and I serve on nonprofit boards with compatible missions.
We use an Orton-Gillingham-based curriculum for teaching literacy online to our students. Recently, a parent who had been very skeptical of online tutoring, stated, “this is really working! He looks forward to his lessons! He read his passage last night without any help!” Another student asked to spell more words during dictation practice because she said it was “fun”. and it helps her at school. Parents or guardians and their children love receiving online instruction for not only is it effective, it fits their busy schedules and reduces the stress involved in shuttling between afterschool activities. Our tutors appreciate the flexibility of being able to travel and still fit in a tutoring session with a client. Our team can more easily substitute for each other, too. Our instructional decisions are informed by the data collected during quick, targeted online assessments while our students progress from beginning to learn to read to engaging in secondary curriculum at school with a sense of success. Anecdotally, parents of two of our students reported each child’s FSA/FAST scores improved from Level 1 to Level 4 in two and one-half years.
We also provide instruction and professional development in the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) Learning Strategies and Content Enhancement Routines developed by the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. Through SIM, we teach vocabulary, comprehension, writing, and other learning strategies to small groups of students who have already mastered phonetics and basic reading and spelling skills.
Our logo uniquely captures the spirit with which we serve and our goal to teach students, support colleagues, and spread the love of reading and learning to as many people as possible. We intend to become a trustworthy source for literacy education. Our services are funded by grants, donations, sponsors, fundraisers, friendraisers, and our sliding fee schedule for tutors and parents or guardians. YOU can make a difference in the life of a child today by donating and/or volunteering at: https://www.Love2Read.org
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
We are educators who are devoted to our students, each other, and our community. My business knowledge was minimal, so “back office” tasks can be a challenge. As a nonprofit, funding is a constant “adventure” requiring the expertise and creativity of our team members. When we feel the steep incline of our “learning curve”, we reflect on our students and their loved ones.
At those moments, memories of my students and their parents reinvigorate my efforts. I think of the twice or thrice retained teenage young men who asked me, “Why Miss, WHY didn’t someone teach this to me when I was in Kindergarten? I shoulda been doin’ this when I was in kindergarten and first grade! Why did I have to wait until NOW to FINALLY learn to read?!?
We think of the young child whose early language experiences were confusing which rendered her unable to read or spell the alphabet even though she was in 2nd grade. She is extremely dyslexic, and after two years of tutoring LOVES learning to read and spell well!
We think of the colleague who in her last semester of teaching 2nd grade implemented the same reading program in her classroom that we use at Love 2 Read, Inc. As retirement approached, she lamented that she wished she had known how to teach reading through the Structured Literacy Approach from her first year of teaching.
We think of the community members who are waiting to be trained as volunteer tutors, so we can reach more students whose parents or guardians cannot afford to pay for specialized tutoring services. While receiving training, one of our tutors exclaimed, “That is what I was doing when I was trying to help my son learn to read when he was in 1st grade! Now, I understand why he was struggling and now I know how to help my new student even more!”
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Love 2 Read, Inc., a young nonprofit organization, began with a $25 deposit and high hopes for grant funding, fundraisers, and sponsorships to fund our tutoring scholarships. We quickly became immersed in chasing leads to potential grants, funders, and networking events. Fortunately, we received a Great Ideas Initiative Grant from the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, Florida which funded our Love 2 Read Palm Beach initiative. We now serve 6 students in Palm Beach County with the support of 5 trained tutors who are dedicated to each of their students. On the heels of that grant, we submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) for an IMPACT 100 grant in another community; but were declined. Our grant writer and I spent an hour on the phone receiving feedback on our LOI, which proved pivotal. Since that meeting, I have been obsessed with brainstorming and developing a basic sustainability plan to form a solid foundation for funding our services. This requires us to seek advice from various new fields of expertise that are critical to our future success. This process is not a ‘quick fix’, yet we are keenly focused on repositioning our organization’s finances and business model for future success. Being declined for that LOI was one of the best things that has happened to us!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.Love2Read.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/love2Read_org/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/love2read.org
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/love2read-org/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjpupTv7-WloP4lWdPnyIKQ
- Other: Email: info@Love2Read.org Telephone: 850-766-9490 Mailing Address: 3199 Lake Worth Road, Suite B-3, Lake Worth, FL 33461
Image Credits
Madeline Adams, daughter of co-founders Andrea and John Adams during a tutoring session with Ms. Mandy in 2020. Krystle Welch, Christa Kennard, Kate Wagner with students. “We have a reader.” “Congratulations, Graduate!” All photos are subject to copyright by Love 2 Read, Inc.