{"id":438629,"date":"2025-12-10T21:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T21:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/438629\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T21:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T21:34:10","slug":"paslay-donation-strengthens-fort-worth-reading-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/438629\/","title":{"rendered":"Paslay Donation Strengthens Fort Worth Reading Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s\u00a03:30 p.m. at Contreras Elementary on Fort Worth\u2019s south side, the\u00a0hour when most classrooms sit quiet and fluorescent lights flicker off one by one. But inside a small room in\u00a0a\u00a0fully-decorated\u00a0hallway, a group of second graders leaned over phonics cards and picture books, laughing,\u00a0sounding out\u00a0blends, and refusing \u2014 even after a full school day \u2014 to call it quits.\u00a0This is Bookworms, an after-school reading intervention program run by\u00a0Literacy United<\/a>, and on this particular December day, the usual routine came with an unexpected flourish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local restaurateur Marcus Paslay<\/a> walked in alongside his wife Emily, flanked by Santa and an enthusiastic elf, carrying a check for $65,000. The gift \u2014 presented to Literacy United executive director Kary Johnson \u2014 is earmarked for Bookworms, a program\u00a0serving\u00a0children in Pre-K through second grade who are struggling with reading and often\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have books, resources, or academic support at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Paslay, the moment was personal. He grew up with dyslexia, wrestling with words that refused to behave on the page.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI performed really poorly in school growing up, and it was always a struggle for me,\u201d he said\u00a0while sitting at a tiny student desk.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

His turning point came when his parents moved him to Hill School, where he spent three years getting the kind of targeted instruction that changed the trajectory of his life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel very pressed to help out and especially at a young age where we can get ahead of that confidence curve and\u00a0reinstall\u00a0confidence in learning in kids who are very bright,\u201d Paslay added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That urgency has shaped the Paslay Foundation\u2019s<\/a> broader mission. The couple recently committed $250,000 to Fort Worth organizations serving young learners with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and related learning differences \u2014 a group that includes Hill School,\u00a0LinkED, and Literacy United. The goal is to support early testing, evidence-based tutoring, and individualized interventions before children\u00a0fall years\u00a0behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson has spent the last two years building Bookworms into a model for early literacy support in\u00a0the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD). Selected schools are high-need campuses where students\u00a0frequently\u00a0arrive without books at home or the kind of language-rich interactions that help reading take root. Bookworms\u00a0provides\u00a0structured lessons grounded in the science of reading, led by a certified teacher with advanced training in reading therapy or special education and supported by carefully trained volunteers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very intentional that we are working with children under third grade,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cBy the time kids get to third grade,\u00a0they\u2019ve\u00a0often had several years of school failure.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0trying to prevent those problems from developing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The results show up not only in phonics skills and decoding scores but also in confidence \u2014 an ingredient Johnson argues is as essential as any curriculum. Parents agree.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jennifer Davila, whose\u00a0second-grader\u00a0participates in Bookworms, says the program fills a gap she\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0know how to address. \u201cMy daughter\u00a0wasn\u2019t reading fluently, not even small words,\u201d Davila said. Once teachers\u00a0identified\u00a0dyslexia and added Bookworms to her daughter\u2019s support system, \u201cshe gets home, she grabs a book, and she will read on her own,\u201d she shared.\u00a0\u201cThat just made me so happy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bookworms\u00a0lean\u00a0heavily on partnerships \u2014 from FWISD educators and university volunteers to local churches, private schools, and civic organizations.\u00a0Oh, and when we\u00a0say\u00a0volunteers, we\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0just talking about a few\u00a0retirees\u00a0babysitting. Johnson\u00a0and her team provide master’s\u00a0degree-level\u00a0professionals to\u00a0guide the classes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Saturdays bring Bookworms Parent University, where families gather for workshops and shared meals. Summers bring extended programming, because, as Johnson puts it, \u201ctime is the enemy when it comes to reading problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Expansion is\u00a0the\u00a0long-term goal, but\u00a0carefully. Johnson insists on landing\u00a0in\u00a0campuses where principals, teachers, and families are all committed to sustained collaboration. She has a waiting list of schools that want the program, as well as parents from across the district calling for help navigating testing and intervention options.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For now, though,\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0focused on the moment \u2014 on the second graders at Contreras, on the volunteers\u00a0reading aloud\u00a0to the families who show up on Saturdays with questions and hope. And on the gift that will keep the program alive for another year \u2014 a gift she describes as \u201clife-giving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many children will be impacted,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0serving a hundred children this year. This\u00a0[check]\u00a0will help a hundred children have a better trajectory.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s\u00a03:30 p.m. at Contreras Elementary on Fort Worth\u2019s south side, the\u00a0hour when most classrooms sit quiet and fluorescent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":438630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,12043,407,56660,7371,7372,4369,6215,3060,10763,6214,358,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-438629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arts-and-culture","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-elementary-school","12":"tag-fort-worth","13":"tag-fortworth","14":"tag-program","15":"tag-reading","16":"tag-schools","17":"tag-stephen-montoya","18":"tag-students","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-top-story","21":"tag-tx","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}