Curriculum Associates and City Year Partner with Columbus City Schools to Support Literacy Development in Grades 3-5

Program leverages Curriculum Associates' Magnetic Reading™ program to provide evidence-based literacy instruction in partnership with City Year AmeriCorps members.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 11, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Curriculum Associates and City Year are continuing their partnership with Columbus City Schools to help close literacy gaps and strengthen reading proficiency. The collaboration brings targeted literacy support to students in Grades 3-5 through small group tutoring led by City Year AmeriCorps members using Curriculum Associates' Magnetic Reading™ program.

This year, Trevitt Elementary School and Livingston Elementary School are the schools benefiting from the program, with five AmeriCorps members serving as student success coaches.

"This partnership brings together City Year's deep relationships with schools and students and Curriculum Associates' high-quality instructional tools to ensure every student has the opportunity to thrive as a reader, writer, and thinker," said Elizabeth Bassford, vice president of content and implementation at Curriculum Associates. "Together, we're helping students strengthen foundational reading skills and build the confidence they need to explore and understand the world around them."

City Year AmeriCorps members leverage their unique "near-peer" relationships with students to deliver engaging, individualized literacy support. Using Curriculum Associates' evidence-based Magnetic Reading™ curriculum—designed with Universal Design for Learning principles and built-in supports for English Learners—coaches help students strengthen foundational reading skills while building confidence and joy in learning.

"City Year AmeriCorps members build powerful relationships with students that foster a love of learning," said Ruth-Marie Lomax, executive director at City Year Columbus. "By pairing the dedication and enthusiasm of our mentors with a high-quality program like Magnetic Reading™, students strengthen their reading skills and grow as confident, capable readers. And learning from near peers adds a level of trust and camaraderie to the experience, creating a community of learners and thinkers."

In the first year of the partnership, 80 percent of AmeriCorps members reported increased confidence and ability to support student literacy through the program. Each student success coach receives comprehensive training and ongoing support from Curriculum Associates to ensure fidelity and effectiveness in their tutoring sessions.

To learn more about City Year, visit CityYear.org. To learn more about Curriculum Associates, visit CurriculumAssociates.com.

About City Year
City Year is a trailblazing, youth-powered organization with a dual mission: advancing academic outcomes for all students and developing the next generation of leaders through national service. Research shows the more time a student spends with a City Year AmeriCorps member serving as a student success coach, the better the student outcomes—academically, interpersonally, and in terms of attendance. A public-private partnership, City Year is a proud member of AmeriCorps, operating in 29 US cities with international affiliates in the UK and South Africa. Today, 40,000 alums continue to lead and serve where they live and work. CityYear.org.

About Curriculum Associates
Curriculum Associates is a mission-driven company dedicated to making Grades K–12 classrooms better for 17 million students and one million educators by uniting meaningful data insights with high-quality instruction. We partner with educators to deliver a connected portfolio of i-Ready solutions spanning adaptive assessment, personalized instruction, and core curriculum in English language arts and mathematics, supported by expert professional learning and service teams, alongside Ellevation for Multilingual Learners and Stile Education® for middle school science. Through our innovation hub, AI Labs, we design forward-looking technologies educators can trust. We measure success by the impact we make on student outcomes and are honored to support the extraordinary work of educators to help every student thrive.

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SOURCE Curriculum Associates, LLC