Reading Excellence and Discovery Foundation, Inc. (abbreviated READ) is a non-profit charitable organization founded in 1999 by Al Sikes. The program was first conducted at two parochial school

Parochial school

A parochial school is a school that provides religious education in addition to conventional education. In a narrower sense, a parochial school is a Christian grammar school or high school which is part of, and run by, a parish.-United Kingdom:...

s in 2000. The READ foundation was created in light of the high proportion of children in New York City from low-income households who, at that time, read below grade level

Grade level

Often, people are educated through a series of educational stages, such as primary school and university. They vary around the world, and not every person will attend the same stages...

. READ benefits kingerdarten and first grade students at risk of reading below grade level. The average session is forty-five minutes of phonics

Phonics

Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations...

 and fluency

Fluency

Fluency is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise.-Speech:...

, conducted by middle through high school students.