Education Commissioner Candice McQueen has announced the results from the third year of the Read to be Ready Summer Grant Program, which provides funding to educators to lead tuition-free, literacy-focused summer camps for students in need across the state. For the third year in a row, rising first, second, and third grade students who participated in the program showed gains in their reading comprehension and accuracy skills and increased their motivation to read.
Cannon County has written and received the grant for the past three years, providing a literacy based summer program for students. During the summer of 2018, six local educators served thirty of our students. Additionally, through the summer grant program, more than 500 high-quality books were sent home with our students, and each student, on average, received 21 new books for his or her home library. Our campers were able to take three field trips, as well as weekly walking trips to Adams Memorial Library. We had twelve guest speakers and community partners this summer.
“Once again, we have seen the powerful impact Read to be Ready summer camps can have on our students,” McQueen said. “The Read to be Ready Summer Grant program allows our students to develop the skills they need to become proficient readers, a skill that is essential for their lifelong success. By continuing this work together, we can continue this progress so every child is reading on grade-level by the time they leave third grade
Read to be Ready summer literacy camps are meant to help students enter the new school year excited and ready to learn without losing any valuable knowledge from the previous school year over the summer. To track success, the department required summer camps to conduct a pre- and post-survey and interview and a pre- and post-assessment on skills gained. The results show that on average, students’ ability to read accurately improved, which allowed students to spend less time analyzing words and pay more attention to meaning. As anticipated with an uptick in accuracy, students’ reading comprehension rate increased as well. This statistically significant increase in comprehension suggests that students were not sacrificing meaning and understanding of texts for the sake of increased accuracy. Additionally, students’ motivation to read also increased—this means students became more confident in their reading skills and began seeing themselves as readers.
