Beyond Basics nonprofit focuses on reading skills to keep children from falling behind

Metro Detroit nonprofit Beyond Basics tackles reading deficits

Beyond Basics? color-coded map pinpoints hotspots from Detroit to the state thumb, so private public partners can target one-on-one tutoring where it matters most.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Reading isn’t just a subject, it’s a survival skill. But in Michigan, the numbers are sobering.

A Metro Detroit nonprofit is working to change that, making sure kids across the entire state can be helped with an innovate way to see exactly what’s going on.

By the numbers:

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the latest numbers are stark.

In 2024, only 24 percent of Michigan 4th-graders were proficient in reading. That’s a drop from 28% in 2022. And it’s well below the national average.

We can zoom in on Michigan’s crisis because the nonprofit Beyond Basics mapped reading scores district by district.

For example in the 13th District which covers Detroit, more than 36,000 kids grades 6 to 12 are reading below grade level.

"You don’t know what you don’t know," said Jacob Durrah, a former Beyond Basics student.

Durrah proves what closing that gap can do. He studied Computer Science at the University of Michigan, and went on to work at General Motors and Google.

But back in the 10th grade, a diagnostic test revealed a reading deficit.

"I figured out that, hey I have a gap," he said.

Beyond Basics stepped in, Jacob caught up, and his confidence skyrocketed.

"Whatever problem that I’m facing, I know that because I've done it with something I thought was going to be really hard, that I couldn't necessarily move forward from, that I did it there," he said. "So then I can do it in any other aspect of my life."

Pamela Good is the co founder and CEO of the literacy nonprofit.

"And the fact that people talk and have a vocabulary, and they can have great personalities, you don’t think they’re not able to read - and they get passed along," she said. "The saying is you learn to read by third grade and then you read to learn.

"As kids just started leaving third grade and couldn’t read, it really went unnoticed."

Beyond Basics’ color-coded map pinpoints hot spots from Detroit to the state thumb, so private public partners can target one-on-one tutoring where it matters most.

"We, together as a nation, can become literate - and that’s a goal here," Good said. "That's a big goal. We have to let the need drive the goal. Our kids right now are in school, and can’t read, and that’s wrong."

Almost 700,000 kids across the state in public education she says can’t read proficiently, and no state in the country can claim better than 40 percent proficiency in reading for 8th graders.

To learn more about Beyond Basics, go HERE for their website.