New program looks to businesses to help fill K-3 literacy needs

SALT LAKE CITY — Two and a half years after Utah Rising was unveiled to Utahns, several businesses and business leaders within Utah Rising have worked together to help find a solution to keep the state's K-3 students reading.

Assembled by the Salt Lake Chamber in 2024, Utah Rising is a statewide strategic plan where several businesses and business leaders discuss and find ways to continue the state's economic prosperity, according to Utah Chamber President and CEO Derek Miller.

It was those discussions that led Utah Rising to Literacy Match, which was announced on Tuesday by a Salt Lake Chamber Foundation program called Utah Community Builders.

Literacy Match is a new program that uses philanthropic investments from businesses, foundations and community partners to help fund Utah's K–3 literacy needs.

"This is the kind of problem-solving Utah is known for," Miller said. "Generations of Utahns built the prosperity we enjoy today by investing in the people who came after them, and now that responsibility is ours. Literacy Match gives employers of every size a direct way to support Utah's children and future."

The whole idea behind Literacy Match is that any business can participate because there are so many different levels of participation, according to Miller.

"Donors identify the type of support they want to provide, Utah Community Builders pairs them with a matching school need and participating schools report back on exactly how the funds were used," the Salt Lake Chamber said in a news release.

Among those investments, Miller said he personally likes the literacy nights the most. Literacy nights take place at community centers, libraries and schools. The investment "connect(s) schools and families through reading activities, parent education, take-home literacy resources, book access and community engagement," according to the Literacy Match website.

Literacy Match is already underway and has begun helping students with their reading skills. Among other examples, in May and August, literacy nights were held at four high-need pilot schools across Utah, according to the Salt Lake Chamber.

"These are people that get right into the schools and they support the teachers to help the individual students having problems reading," Miller said.

In June, 6,000 literacy kits were assembled for kids in need after Utah Community Builders partnered with the Granite Education Foundation. According to Miller, those literacy kits were given to kids over the summer, and right now there are just under 1,000 students who engaged with the reading program over the summer.

The connection between businesses and reading

Utah's had a very strong economy based on GDP growth and unemployment rate for the last two years. To keep that strength going, Utah Rising associates asked themselves one question — how do we stay here?

"One of the areas that we identified that was a really important strength for Utah is a highly educated workforce," Miller said. "The numbers showed the third-grade reading proficiencies was declining, where about half of students in Utah are not reading at grade level in third grade."

In 2025, only 50.3% of Utah's third graders met grade-level literacy expectations, according to the Salt Lake Chamber. Only 53.3% of kindergartners and 48.2% of first graders met grade-level literacy expectations.

In addition, Miller said third grade is a vital part of a child's educational life because once a student reaches third grade, they tend to shift from learning to read, to reading to learn.

The data shows a child who can't read by third grade is less likely to graduate high school and less likely to successfully enter the workforce, according to Miller. Even though business leaders looked at the problem from an economic standpoint, the issue troubled them because it was more than an economic imperative.

"The fact that many of Utah's kids aren't reading at this level is a huge threat to Utah's economic prosperity," Miller said.

In second grade, Miller himself was part of the number of kids who were below reading level. When the Utah Chamber president entered second grade, he was put into a special program to learn how to read.

"Luckily for me, I got the intervention I needed, not just at school but at home too," Miller said.

While parents and family are at the top of the list to help a child thrive in reading, Miller said everyone needs to be involved when fighting this challenge. To help fix the problem of students not being at their proper reading level, the Utah Chamber focused on Literacy Match.

Although it will take time and resources, Miller said the ultimate goal is to get Utah's third grade readers to 100% by 2030.

"At the end of the day, we should never forget that what we're talking about is people. It's people that make up the economy, it's people that benefit from the economy, and people who advance the economy," Miller said. "When you boil the economy down to its essence, it's really about people being able to read. This is why literacy is so important to the business community."

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