Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Springfield Reads to Build a Better World, a citywide summer reading project developed to help spread the message of the importance of children reading for 20 minutes every day, announced that in total, participating children have read over 220,500 minutes this summer.
Mayor Domenic J. Sarno attended the announcement to show his support for the initiative. Springfield Reads to Build a Better World was developed as a collaboration of summer learning providers from community-based programs, the Springfield Public Schools Early Start program for rising third graders and the Springfield City Library. Books that are being read by children in the Springfield Public Schools Early Start program were supplied by the Sisters of Providence through a bequest to Brightside for Families and Children from a donor who wished to provide greater access to books for children.
Participating summer learning programs ensure that every child in their program reads for 20 minutes every day, and records the number of children reading. The Reading Success by 4th Grade initiative will track the number of minutes read across the City. The current total of minutes read in participating programs will be announced at the event.
Springfield Reads to Build a Better World has been designed to connect to the Springfield City Library’s summer reading program, so children will also be able to track their summer reading and be entered to win prizes from the Library. The Library supplies mini-libraries to summer programs, as well as offering library visits and staff for story hours.
Brightside for Families and Children, part of Mercy Medical Center, and Reading Success by 4th Grade donated books for 75 Springfield Public Schools Early Start classrooms to have mini-libraries of 30 books each for children to use for their 20 minutes of daily reading.
Research shows that children who read for 20 minutes every day are exposed to 1.8 million words per year and score 90% better than their peers on reading tests.
Read! Reading Success by 4th Grade is a broad coalition of leaders in education, child development, business, philanthropy and government working towards the goal of all of Springfield’s children reading proficiently by the end of third grade.
