Reading Assist Institute announces the certification of its first class of Certified Reading Assist Interventionists.

The 13 graduates were the first to undertake the 50-hour training course in the accredited Reading Assist Intervention Program. It's the only program in Delaware accredited by the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council.

Graduates includes: Pamela Barr, Bridgette Boody, Liberty Breen, Lucinda Evans, Sharia Greene, Keely Hill, Toni Jackson, Carla Leonard, Arora Maravich, Stephen Melaragni, Weston Prince, Sharon Sanders and Ryan Turner.

Over the last school year, RAI Corps members delivered reading intervention to struggling readers in the Colonial School District and Thomas Edison Charter School in Wilmington.

Just two students out of 17 2nd grade students in the program hit benchmarks for phonemic segmentation at the beginning of the year. Within six months, every one of those students had reached the mark. Likewise, by midyear, 100 percent of all third graders had hit benchmarks for whole words read, increasing words correct per minute by 69.57 percent.