BOOK EFFECT - "SUMMER SLIDE"
Books have been distributed this summer in great abundance. As I pulled up into a trailer park in the Story Express one day a seven-year-old little boy hollered, “Hey, you’re the book lady aren’t you?” He remembered from when he was in Head Start and Pre-K getting books from the Story Express. He couldn’t wait to climb up on the van and pick out a book. When I found out it was also his birthday, I encouraged him to choose two books. These low-income students are so hungry for books, it made me know we will plan to supply these kids with more books next summer.
Then I ran across a report on a study conducted by Dr. Richard Allington, a longtime reading researcher at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville on how free books block the “summer slide” in low-income students. Research has shown that giving children books may be as effective as summer school. The big question is whether the effect can help reduce the achievement gap between low-income and middle-class peers.
This study shows that by sixth grade the “summer slide” in academics accounts for as much as 80% of the achievement gap. Researchers note low-income students lose about three months of ground each summer compared to middle-class peers.
Allington says, “You do that across 9 or 10 summers, and the next thing you know, you’ve got almost three years’ reading growth lost.” After giving low-income children 12 books for three consecutive summers, those students had “significantly higher” reading scores, experienced less of a “summer slide” and read more on their own each summer than their peers who didn’t get books. When kids own books they get the sense that they are truly readers. It’s empowering for a child to have books in their home. Even their parents get excited whether they can read or not.
You can probably guess where Tammy is right now — not at her desk at The Craddock Center, but driving the Story Express to the Gilmer Food Pantry for tomorrow’s book giveaway!
Please continue to collect books to send this way. — TLS
SNACK IN A BACKPACK
To meet the needs of children whose main nutrition are the meals served at school. Many children in the counties served by The Craddock Center rely on free breakfast and lunch during the school week. Because of lack of food on the weekends and during school vacations, the Backpack Program concept was developed at the Arkansas Rice Depot fifteen years ago and has become a national program.
The Craddock Center is participating in one county currently and plans to share this model with the other eight counties we serve. Nearly 60 percent of Fannin County students receive free or reduced meals at school.
“That’s two out of every three kids”, the school nutrition director reported. Each child in the program takes a backpack loaded with nutritious kid-friendly, non-perishable food home on Fridays and returns the empty backpack on Monday and volunteers repeat the process each week. Last week
The Craddock Center volunteers filled 64 backpacks at two schools with 832 packages of weekend food to children in need. If you’d like to help alleviate hungry tummies on the weekends, sponsorship opportunities are available:
- 1 child for 1 week: $6.00
- 1 child for 1 month: $26.00
- 1 child for 1 semester: $120.00
- 1 child for 1 school year: $240.00
We are looking for partners/sponsors for this program to help keep kids from going to bed hungry.