Covington has officially voted on a deal to hand off one of the city’s legacy literacy initiatives, Read Ready Covington, to regional educational nonprofit EducateNKY.
As a result, Read Ready Covington will be integrated into EducateNKY’s Read Ready Network, which already provides early childhood education resources in other river cities.
Read Ready Covington is a city initiative that dates back to 2018 and was headed up largely by Mary Kay Connolly, a former teacher, guidance counselor and nonprofit professional. EducateNKY, which was established after Read Ready Covington, aimed to expand Read Ready Covington’s model to other cities. Newport, Ludlow, Bellevue, Dayton and Southgate are other cities currently in the Read Ready Network.
Connolly was honored with a city proclamation and plaque at Tuesday night’s meeting, where the vote to absorb the program into EducateNKY took place.
Mayor Ron Washington discussed time he’s spent working with Connolly as she was “reading to the children and promoting the program,” he said, where he witnessed kids’ “eyes and how they discover all kinds of things just through the written word.”
The initiative began largely as a way to establish good reading habits for kindergarten readiness, first through the use of a free app called Footsteps to Brilliance and then later through events and other initiatives.
“Mary Kay redefined what literacy looks like by transforming neighborhoods, parks, sidewalks and public spaces into the interactive learning environments,” Washington said, reading from the city’s proclamation, “making education accessible and fun through innovative programs, such as the A to Z walking tours, literacy scavenger hunts, little free libraries and expanded digital learning tools.”
“The city said, I want to be responsible for the leadership gap in early childhood,” said EducateNKY Early Learning and Family Power VP Jenny Watson. “From there, let’s engage with partners, school district partners, let’s engage with community partners and parents to say we need every child in the City of Covington ready for kindergarten.”
The program is aimed at children up to age 5. Connolly emphasized the importance of early childhood as a period in a child’s development.
“90% of the brain’s physical development occurs before age six,” said Connolly, “and that prenatal through age five [range] is crucial. Yet, families are the first educators.”
When asked what the plans for the future were, Watson said EducateNKY would be expanding Read Ready’s digital resources, namely through the use of a texting service from Cincinnati Children’s hospital that sends developmental milestone notes to parents.
“Also, we’re going to have place-based initiatives,” Watson told LINK nky. “We will form a committee: city leadership, school district leadership, and that committee will decide every month strategically what they’re going to do.”
A press release from the city elaborated that the Read Ready Network through EducateNKY would provide administrative infrastructure for the program, but the city would “retain a leadership role in shaping its local strategy, including representation on the Read Ready Network Board of Directors.”
Learn more about the Read Ready Network at readreadyky.org.
