Last year, as part of our first annual Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge, over 1,000 Newton students from preschool to high school read over 8,000 hours. We are looking to improve on that record this year.
Online registration here.
The Mayor’s Reading Challenge has a loftier goal: preparing our students for success in the classroom and beyond.
The vast majority of our children’s time is spent out of the classroom–and at no time is this more true than during the summer months. The Reading Challenge is part of this administration’s effort to engage students outside the classroom, to take advantage of time spent out of school to develop and maintain skills such as reading and introduce them to possible career paths through programs such as the Mayor’s STEM Nights and the Mayor’s Summer High School Internship Program to get them excited early about their future.
Research shows that the benchmark of being able to read proficiently by the 3rd grade is a strong indicator of a child’s likelihood of graduating high school and ability to be financially successful later in life.
About 16% of children who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade do not graduate from high school on time — a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers. (Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation)
Kids who are already behind at the end of the year fall further behind during the summer months and are disproportionately impacted by the phenomenon of summer learning loss–especially if they belong to a low-income family–further widening the achievement gap.
source: Annie E Casey Foundation
This year, we are focusing on helping our kids get up to reading proficiency by these critical benchmarks as one of the aims of the Summer Reading Challenge.
I hope you will join us in encouraging our students (of all ages!) to sign up for the Mayor’s Summer Reading Challenge. We believe it can make a real impact on their ability to be successful in the classroom and in the workplace.
Best,
Setti D. Warren
Mayor
