Get Georgia Reading Presents to House Education Committee
Get Georgia Reading Campaign Director Arianne Weldon spoke to the House Education Committee this week. Committee Chairman Brooks Coleman invited her to talk about the Campaign’s strategy for getting every child in Georgia on the path to reading proficiently by third grade by 2020.
“I have a confession to make,” said Weldon to the Committee. “I’m trained as an epidemiologist. I’m not a reading expert. I know that for any disease, there are always determinants and patterns related to risk and protective factors that provide clues for population-level solutions. The same determinants and patterns occur in low-reading proficiency.”
That revelation caught Rep. Randy Nix’s attention. “We can find one or two problems that we want to address,” said Nix about the 66 percent of Georgia’s third graders not reading proficiently. “But Arianne’s thought is, rather than wait until there’s an epidemic, let’s stop the disease before we get there.”
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