Legal Research

Summer Reading Successes

By admin

This has been hanging out in my not-blogged-yet files for a while so in the interest of having a clean inbox . . . from The New York Times:

Op-Ed Columnist
The Medium Is the Medium
By David Brooks

“Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school year. They did this for three successive years.

Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students’ test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. ”

From USA Today:

Free books block ‘summer slide’ in low-income students
by Greg Toppo

From the LRS Library Research Service and lots of other places:

Study Shows Summer Reading Programs Close Reading Gap

“Published earlier this year, The Dominican Study: Public Library Summer Reading Programs Close the Reading Gap showed that ?Students who participated in the public library summer reading program scored higher on reading achievement tests at the beginning of the next school year than those students who did not participate.? For more see?”

Executive Summary
http://www.dom.edu/academics/gslis/downloads/DOM_IMLS_research_in_brief_FINALweb.pdf

Final Report
http://www.dom.edu/academics/gslis/downloads/DOM_IMLS_book_2010_FINAL_web.pdf

That’s all good news but not if we don’t turn it into soundbites and share the information those who influence budget setting activities.

So, if you ran a summer reading program in your library, be proud. It makes a real difference.

Share your successes. Show the pictures. Share the stories, Have the kids tell their stories. Share them. Seems a small price to pay for real results.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on August 19, 2010 (boomark / email).