Kids Read Now helps combat ‘summer slide’

Research clearly shows one of the biggest ways to offset “summer slide” for students is to find novel ways — no pun intended — to keep kids reading during the summer months. A child continuing to read regularly during the three months he or she is away from school for summer break is the number one indicator of whether the student will experience “summer slide” or “summer gain.”

Likewise, whether a child does read during the summer directly correlates to his or her access to books. For the second summer, Kettering students in kindergarten, first and second grades have the opportunity to participate in the Kids Read Now program.

Based on the simple formula of “read a book, get a book, all summer long,” Kids Read Now is a proven reading program that is driven by five pillars, including “choices, challenges, rewards, parental engagement and results.”

Here’s how it works: In the early spring, K-2 students are provided with a list of books geared toward a wide variety of reading levels. With the help of their teachers, each student selects nine books from a master list to build his or her “Summer Reading Wish List.” In May, each of Kettering’s elementary schools hosted Family Reading Nights, where each student was presented with the first three of his or her chosen books and parents were given a summer reading “Parent Guide” that includes tips for encouraging children to read and engaging them in conversation about the books they have read.

Throughout the summer, parents and guardians are contacted weekly via phone call, email or text by Kids Read Now staff to check in on their child’s progress and to respond to any questions or concerns parents may have. In addition, parents go online to the Kids Read Now website and report their child’s progress as they complete books on their “Summer Reading Wish List.” Reporting that a child has read a set of books triggers the mailing of the next set, and students who read all nine of their books during the summer are presented with a prize from Kids Read Now when they return to school in August.

“’Summer slide’ is very real and can add up to two or more years of academic loss for our most at-risk populations,” said Justin Cline, elementary curriculum leader with the Kettering Schools.

With just one summer’s worth of data, Cline notes it is difficult to gauge the true impact of Kids Read Now on Kettering students’ Englishlanguage-arts (ELA) achievement scores. However, assessments the district uses – such as AIMSweb – indicate students who read at least six books over the course of last summer showed little, if any, drop in literacy scores when these assessments were administered.