Data showed that more proficient readers were students being attracted to the library’s summer reading programs. Our challenge was to attract the attention of less proficient readers and to eliminate obstacles keeping those children from participating. The opportunity is to see if reaching out to struggling students, or those with less resources, will result in increased learning results. It is also an opportunity to connect students without ongoing supplies of books with summer reading materials.

Partnering with the school district, library staff found schools that have been underrepresented in our summer program and have low student reading proficiency scores. Staff are testing a variety of techniques to see which result in the greatest increases in summer reading participation such as attending free school lunch programs, setting up a mini library on the school steps or offering gas cards to make it easier for low-income families to reach the library.

The school district will compare spring and fall reading proficiency scores of children in library summer reading programs with those of the student population as a whole. Because our program is based on the number of days reading 20 minutes or more, we anticipate not only attracting more children into the summer programs but also finding that reading levels have been retained/improved at increased levels when youth are summer readers.