Dive Brief:
- School districts are partnering with their communities to increase young children's early reading skills and give them access to books — which experts say is key to closing the “literacy gap,” District Administration reports.
- In a number of programs, schools and their partners are trying a variety of approaches intended to boost the amount and level of reading among young children, including providing transportation, meals, summer lessons and family activities for special events.
- Experts say that strong literacy programs in pre-K have a major effect on reading ability by 3rd grade, which is an important indicator of student success.
Dive Insight:
The Every Student Succeeds Act provides grants for early childhood-education programs that prepare young students to make sufficient progress by the end of 3rd grade, including preschool programs like these that “emphasize school readiness, screening and referral.”
There are a number of programs where schools work with the community to promote reading at a young age, including Books for Kids in New York, Books Between Kids in Houston, Book Harvest in Durham, N.C., Promising Pages in Charlotte, and Books for Keeps statewide in Georgia. All are similar community-based programs, but with different approaches.
Sociology professor Donald Hernandez, in a survey of reading scores from more than 4,000 students, found that students who can’t read by 3rd grade are four times less likely to graduate high school by age 19. One in six children who are not reading by then fail to graduate. He also found that poverty and race played a big role when combined with an inability to read well by 3rd grade. Those students were 13 times less likely to graduate on time. School leaders can work with community partners to create reading and free book programs, increasing the chances that students will enter school with more pre-reading skills.