GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — According to the organization Start with a Book, summer learning loss is one of the most significant causes of the achievement gap between poorer and wealthier students.
They say, on average, low-income students lose more than two months of reading achievement during the summer, versus slight gains made by middle-class students.
13 ON YOUR SIDE is working to change that with our “Stop the Summer Slide” campaign.
The station has partnered with Storytime in the Park, StorytimeGR, and Summer Reading Celebrations for their literacy events in various Grand Rapids parks.
No doubt, the best way to combat summer slide is with access to books.
The old saying, “USE it or LOSE it” is true when it comes to kids and reading.
Those who never crack open a book suffer for it. They go back to school in the fall and have their work cut out for them.
So do educators. Lisa Herman is a third-grade teacher in Grand Rapids and she’s seen the struggle.
“It's really hard once they don't come back with those skills ready to learn, then they're already a step behind,” said Herman, “so it's really hard for them to catch up and continue and grow the way that we need them to grow throughout the year.”
And the losses are cumulative.
“It does build up year after year after year. And so we find that when children are not reading through the summer and they have that slide, that it's really hard for them to catch up and they get discouraged and we don't want that because we want everyone to love reading," Herman explained.
Not only do we want them to love reading, we want them to succeed elsewhere in school.
Studies show children who struggle with reading and writing run the risk of falling behind in other subjects as well. Good readers have a healthier self-image, they’re more likely to graduate from high school, go to college, stay out of prison, the list goes on and on.
There are two more Summer Reading Celebration events this summer, July 16 at Roosevelt Park and Aug. 13 at Mulick Park.
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