Enriching Education: Soar Into Summer with Reading is Fundamental

 

Summer learning loss has long-lasting effects on the educational trajectory of students, disproportionately impacting students of lower socioeconomic status. By the fifth grade, summer learning loss can leave low-income students two-and-a-half to three years behind their peers. And, students who fall behind over the summer are less likely to graduate from high school or go on to college (National Summer Learning Association). Additionally, while the long-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on student academic achievement are not fully known at this time, studies early in the pandemic projected students would return to school in fall 2020 with roughly only 70% of the learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year (NWEA). 

 

As the nation’s oldest children’s literacy non-profit organization, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) is committed to providing reading resources and tools all year long and especially during this pivotal time. RIF launched an online destination, Soar Into Summer, that offers a robust set of free booklists, activities, daily engagement support, book club toolkit, and more to encourage reading among children in Kindergarten through 5^th grade all summer long. 

 

Soar Into Summer offers a set of resources for educators, caregivers, and community volunteers to utilize this summer to encourage reading every day for the children in their lives. The digital destination supports RIF’s summer reading intervention strategy to keep kids excited about and engaged in reading. You can also read a recent blog post from RIF’s President & CEO, Alicia Levi, highlighting this resource to support summer learning.

I had a chance to do an interview to learn more.

Why was Reading is Fundamental created?  Margaret McNamara, wife of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, was inspired to start Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) in 1966 with the simple solution of putting books into the hands of children. She was tutoring students in Washington, DC and when she realized they did not own any books of their own, she started bringing books from her family to share with the students. She realized how fundamental book ownership was for reading success.

Why is it so important to encourage reading every day, especially in the summer? Research shows the importance of making reading an everyday habit and building a culture of literacy at school and at home. When children are regular readers – whether independent reading or being read to – it helps set them on a pathway for learning, growth, and opportunity. In the summer this is particularly important when students are out of school and have less access to academic enrichment. It’s vitally important to incorporate reading into summer fun to keep children on track during the summer months. This is why RIF is please to offer our online destination, Soar Into Summer, with free resources, booklists, activities and fun to keep kids engaged and reading all summer long: www.RIF.org/summer

How can parents and caregivers find books that are engaging for their kids and appropriate for their reading levels? We encourage parents, caregivers and educators to explore Reading Is Fundamental’s summer reading page of course (www.RIF.org/summer) and then check out RIF’s Literacy Central (www.RIF.org/Literacy-Central) that offers free book resources and supplemental activities for thousands of popular and classic titles.  You can search the site by grade, age, theme, author, illustrator, and more to discover suggested titles and free reading activities. Plus, Literacy Central offers curated book collections for recommended reading.  School and public librarians are also a wonderful wealth of information for finding great reading material!