Kids READ Stems Summer Slide

Imagine growing from a kindergarten-level reader to the cusp of second-grade level in a matter of weeks. That’s the trajectory one young Venice boy is on thanks to Kids READ. And his is not an unusual success story for the intensive summer literacy program.

Dominic was a reluctant reader when he started summer camp at the Boys & Girls Club in Venice last month. After just six weeks of lessons with Kids READ tutor Sarah Hill, he now reads “level 15” books (think late first-grade) cover to cover. “I’d love his kindergarten teacher from last year to see the progress he has made!” says Hill.

Dominic is one of eight Club members who meet Hill four days a week for 30 minutes of one-on-one tutoring during their camp day. Over seven weeks, each will receive about 14 hours of custom teaching from Hill, who is a Reading Recovery teacher at Taylor Ranch Elementary during the school year. With one week left, six of them have effectively advanced an entire grade-level in their reading!

Kids READ is an offshoot of Reading Recovery in Sarasota County Schools—and could be considered an unsung hero of that incredibly successful initiative. Reading Recovery helps first-graders who struggle the most with reading and writing quickly catch up to their classmates. It was piloted and expanded through philanthropy, and now every elementary school in the Sarasota County School District has at least one Reading Recovery specialist.

Kids READ was developed four years ago by Gulf Coast Community Foundation in partnership with the Keith D. Monda family and Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation to build on Reading Recovery’s success and fill a gap in the summer months. While not a formal component of Reading Recovery, Kids READ uses many of the same techniques—as well as several Reading Recovery teachers, who receive stipends through Gulf Coast—to meet two objectives: ensure that children don’t suffer from “summer slide,” and prepare them to read at grade level (or better) when they return to school in August.

Kid READ also meets children where they are. While the similarly named Kids SWIM initiative offers vital water-safety lessons to second-grade classes during school hours, Kids READ puts tutors in the locations where kids spend their summer days.

Reading Focused, Data Driven

This summer, there are seven tutors with Reading Recovery expertise providing Kids READ lessons to at least 56 summer campers at six sites across the county—the Fruitville, Newtown, North Sarasota, North Port, and Venice Boys & Girls Clubs as well as the RL Taylor Community Center. School district data identifies the children who would benefit most from the program, says Laurel Hinds, a Reading Recovery-trained intervention specialist at Wilkinson Elementary who serves as the Kids READ Coordinator.

With regard to preventing summer learning loss, “we’ve had 98% - 100% success each year since the program started,” says Hinds. But Kids READ doesn’t only prevent loss; it typically promotes gains. As many as 15 students who were expected to participate in Reading Recovery when they enter first grade in the fall won’t need a spot because of their summer progress! “It just sets these kids up for success in the school year,” says Hinds. 

It does so in part by transforming the relationship children have with books. “It really instills in the kiddos the love of reading,” she says. “They see that we don’t just read in school. They take home books—they’re building their own libraries.”

Hill agrees. “Some of these kids never read a book outside of school,” she says,” and now they come running down the hall when it’s time for their lesson!”

A Community Partnership

Hinds stresses that the great partnership between Gulf Coast, the school district, and the partner sites makes the program so effective.

Each year, something new grows from the program, she adds. The first year it was parents’ grateful participation—they would ask for tips and try to encourage more reading at home. This year, she says, the tutors and camp staff have identified “back-up kids”—those who would have been next in line for the program—and can pull them in for help if a scheduled student is absent or off on a field trip, expanding the reach. “We are always working with kids the five full hours a day that we are here,” says Hinds. “This program has blossomed into some amazing things for our students.”

Over the course of the program’s seven weeks, Hinds’ tutors compile customized folders detailing each child’s accomplishments and needs. Before summer ends, she will crunch the numbers to determine individual and overall progress, then she will deliver the folders to the incoming students’ teachers for the start of the year. “It will give them the next steps,” says Hinds.

That continuity is what makes Kids READ so valuable in the eyes of Gulf Coast President|CEO Mark Pritchett. “Reading Recovery has been embedded in our school district, and year after year the data proves how successful it is,” says Pritchett. “With Kids READ, we are leveraging the investment we already make in our wonderful teachers, and that is paying off big time for our students.”