existing initiative by broadening their out-of-school time strategy to include increased ... Tacoma Grade-Level Reading
CAMPAIGN FOR GRADE-LEVEL READING COMMUNITIES LEADING THE WAY IN SUMMER LEARNING SUMMERLEARNING.ORG
Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Pacesetter Communities are recognized for demonstrating measureable progress on student outcomes. The following are nine of the 28 communities that received 2015 Pacesetter Honors for their work in summer learning. Dubuque, IA – The eastern Iowa community of Dubuque has seen early successes from their Grade-Level Reading Campaign partnering with the longstanding efforts of the community’s cradleto-career initiative, Every Child/Every Promise. The Dubuque Grade-Level Reading Campaign helped to improve on the existing initiative by broadening their out-of-school time strategy to include increased summer learning opportunities for younger children. To launch this effort, the Campaign implemented an allday, five-week summer learning program for at-risk children who had just completed kindergarten and first grade in the Dubuque Community Schools to help students maintain or improve their reading proficiency. Waukegan, IL – Summer learning is on the rise for prekindergarten children from low-income families in Waukegan. Before the Kindergarten Countdown summer program last year, 48 percent of the children attending could master key early literacy skills such as knowing the alphabet and how to use books. After the program, the percentage rose to 68. Waukegan Grade-Level Reading also developed a full-day summer learning program—available to hundreds of young children—by combining two part-day offerings. Dayton, OH – The Dayton Grade-Level Reading Campaign is keeping more children from low-income families learning during the summer. Dayton expanded access to high-quality summer programming, provided free-of-charge to the community’s highest-need students. Through the BELL Summer Program, students attended Freedom Schools, a literacy-focused program from the Children’s Defense Fund. Five hundred kindergarten through thirdgrade students who attended gained, on average, two months in reading after participating in the program. Rochester, NY – Through the Summer Reading Campaign/ Mayor’s Challenge, students in pre-kindergarten through second grade received and were challenged to read 10 books during the summer. Students who achieved this goal received a certificate from the Mayor and a coupon for a free book. Americorps and Rochester high-school students acted as Literacy Aides in all Rochester libraries and recreation centers, administering the Raise a Reader program to promote turning children into lifelong readers. Rochester County School District summer school sites, recreation centers, community agencies and churches collaborated to provide free and healthy summer meals for the children.
To learn more visit gradelevelreading.net
Moore County, NC – The Grade-Level Reading community of Moore County is combatting “summer slide.” Eighty-eight percent of the children from low-income families who completed the community’s summer reading program last summer maintained or increased their reading scores—up from 10 percent in summer 2014. Helping to make Moore County’s program happen are partnerships with the public schools, the Boys and Girls Club and the public library. Philadelphia, PA – The Philadelphia Grade-Level Reading community is stemming summer learning loss through its ambitious READ by 4th, a citywide effort of 50 organizations, public and private, large and small, convened and managed by the Free Library of Philadelphia. READ stands for Ready. Engaged. Able. Determined. The effort involves an holistic approach including early learning, providing parents with resources to teach their children reading skills, addressing behavioral and health concerns, emphasizing summer reading and other strategies to prevent learning loss. New York, NY – The collaborative efforts of the United Way of New York City, five New York public schools, Read Alliance (a New York early literacy group) and East Side House Settlement (a community-based organization) are helping the New York Grade-Level Reading Campaign provide summer and extended-learning opportunities for youth in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The Once Upon a Summer program targets youth in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx, the nation’s poorest congressional district, and offers them one-on-one tutoring and camp-like activities, as well as family workshops offering hands-on strategies to build literacy at home. Tacoma, WA – The Tacoma Grade-Level Reading Campaign was one of many communities that celebrate Read Across America Day to promote a community-wide effort to demonstrate to children that reading can be fun. To help parents further engage their children in learning during the summer months, the Tacoma Grade-Level Reading community developed an online directory, summerlearningtacoma.org, of diverse summer learning programs taking place throughout the county. Community partners in Tacoma are working together so that all Tacoma kids keep reading, growing through new experiences and maintaining skills they have learned in school over the summer months. Ames, IA – Ames Reads, the local Grade-Level Reading Campaign led by United Way of Story County, has continued to make strides in increasing the number of students reading at a proficient level by the end of third grade. Ames Reads offers free one-on-one individualized tutoring during the summer to young struggling readers by providing community volunteer “Reading Buddies.” The buddies are trained by Donald Bear, literacy expert who developed Words Their Way, a reading intervention designed to address each child’s needs.
Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Bright Spots showcase the most inspiring and promising work underway in more than 240 Grade-Level Reading communities in the network. Getting Lost in a Book
Creative Partnerships
Baltimore, MD – The Grade-Level Reading community in Baltimore partnered with Baltimore City Schools and the Enoch Pratt Free Library to encourage reading over the summer and increase participation in the Pratt Summer Reading Program. Through this partnership, the Summer Reading Program saw a six percent increase in children completing the program. Baltimore also partnered with Raising a Reader, a national nonprofit early literacy and parent engagement program, Baltimore City Public Schools and Head Start programs to provide books and family reading strategies to more than 11,000 Baltimore-area children.
San Francisco, CA – The Re(a)d Zone, co-developed by the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading and co-sponsored by Grade-Level Reading Bay Area communities, is a 14-month initiative focused on investing in programs that help struggling readers catch up, marginally-proficient readers to avoid the “summer slide,” and low-income children across the Bay Area—prioritizing children in public housing—get access to books, reading programs and early literacy support. The initiative plans to engage 50,000 Bay Area “Literacy Champions” as volunteer tutors, book donors and early literacy advocates.
Vernon, CT – Connecticut’s NewAlliance Foundation has long worked on education and closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. But the summer learning focus was inspired by the Grade-Level Reading community in Vernon, Connecticut. The Vernon GLR community led the charge in the NewAlliance’s READy for the Grade initiative which includes four Connecticut communities. Libraries in each community partnered with a school serving kindergarten through third grade students from low-income families to engage parents and provide children’s reading assessment scores before and after the summer program. In 2015, 150 children from ages 5 – 8 were served through the initiative.
Topeka, KS – The Topeka Grade-Level Reading community is making great strides through their unique partnerships, including one with the Topeka Housing Authority. Thanks to this partnership, Pine Ridge Prep, a free public pre-school program was located in a public housing complex where most of the students live. The Pine Ridge Partnership includes Topeka Public Schools, residents, businesses and volunteers and aims to improve the academic outcomes of children living in the complex. The first graduates went from scoring as low as the 20th percentile on pre-literacy assessment to scoring above the 80th percentile.
Bellevue, WA – The Grade-Level Reading community in the Bellevue is powered by Eastside Pathways, a cradle-to-career partnership and member of the Strive Together Network. Their collective impact approach unites stakeholders around shared goals, measures and results in education. Through Bellevue Grade-Level Reading’s collaborative partnerships with representatives from the school district, city, YMCA, library, children’s museum, Boys and Girls Club and others, the free summer learning program has doubled to serve about 1,000 young struggling readers. Anytime, Anywhere Learning Berks County, PA – Ready. Set. READ! is a communitywide initiative directed by the United Way of Berks County that participates in ReadyRosie, an online parent engagement tool that promotes school readiness through hundreds of short videos modeling fun and easy literacy and math activities for young children. Each video demonstrates the same activity in both English and Spanish. Ready. Set. READ! is spreading the word about ReadyRosie at kindergarten roundups with kindergarten teachers, child care providers, pediatricians, community action agencies and WIC, the government health and nutrition program for women, infants and children.
To learn more about these and other communities, visit glrhuddle.org/brightspots
Fueling Minds and Bodies Richland County, SC – The Grade-Level Reading community in Richland County hosts several events through the Richland Library during the summer months and throughout the year, that support early learning, family literacy, grade-level reading and success in school and beyond. One popular summer event, Pigskin Poets, merged football with literacy as players from the University of South Carolina Gamecocks read books to the youth and challenged them to participate in the library’s Summer Learning Challenge. The event also highlighted the library’s Project Summer Stride, a four-week program designed to help rising first through third grade students who struggle with reading by providing one-on-one enrichment activities four days a week, as well as books to build children’s home libraries. Palacios, TX – The Palacios Grade-Level Reading Campaign is helping decrease the summer learning slide in their small rural community where most of the children live in poverty and nearly a third have English language barriers. The Palacios Community Hub, a community learning center, was established to strengthen families through literacy and community services. The Hub supports national programs like First Book, which provides free low-cost books to children in Palacios; Reach Out and Read, which helps pediatricians coach low-income parents on the importance of reading to their children; and PBS Kids Ready to Learn, which provides apps and technology support to boost at-risk children ability to learn from literacy and math based educational programs.
