Eton Academy Uses $3,000 Literacy Grant to Support Struggling Readers

Birmingham's Eton Academy is the recipient of a grant that will go straight toward helping students who struggle the most with reading.

The Eton Academy — the Birmingham-based school for students in grades 1-12 with learning challenges — received $3,000 from the Dollar General Literarcy Foundation as part of their Youth Literacy Grant program.

At Eton, the grant money has been used to purchase iPads downloaded with various applications to help struggling readers.

According to Eton's communications director, Dawn Frasa, the grant rounds out a school-wide initiative to provide each of its 205 students — the highest enrollment Eton has seen in its 27-year history — with their own iPad.

More than 80 percent of Eton students have a language-based learning challenge — such as dyslexia — that interfere with their ability to read, write and spell.

According to a press release from the school, Eton's curriculum is based on research that shows "that literacy-based technology helps students make substantial gains in reading, writing and spelling."

"The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is pleased to support the literacy efforts of Eton Academy," said Rick Dreilling, Dollar General's chairman and CEO. "The Youth Literacy grants are awarded annually at the start of the school year so that the funds are in place to have an impact on reading education and support."

This year alone, the Dollar General awarded more than $2 million in grants to 564 nonprofit organizations, community groups, schools and libraries around the country.