At Hodges Manor Elementary School in Portsmouth, students got a chance to take home five free books during a book fair, thanks to WTKR’s “If You Give a Child a Book…” campaign.
Students like Miley Bernier enjoyed the literature.
“I feel relaxed, and I feel as if I can just read and be comfortable,” Bernier told News 3.
Hodges Manor Elementary Assistant Principal Dennis Chalk said the fair helped promote childhood literacy at the school.
“You're putting books in kids' hands,” Chalk said. “There's reading in math, there's reading in science, there's reading in social studies. We've got to build that foundation of reading so kids can be successful in all of their classes.”
Susan Lambert and Paul Gazzerro have been keeping tabs on childhood literacy rates with research through Amplify, an educational service provider.
“Literacy makes a difference,” Lambert, Amplify’s Chief Academic Officer said. “We know that the biggest impact on students' learning is what the teacher does in the classroom.”
News 3 first introduced you to them last August, and showed their report that breaks down data over the past three school years, representing thousands of K-5 students nationwide.
At the time, their data showed that while more students were on track for learning how to read in the 2021-2022 school year in comparison to the previous school year, the number was still lower than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.
But now, there’s new data from Amplify highlighting the 2022-2023 school year.
“It would seem, at the moment at least, we're starting to see a positive bounce back,” Gazzerro, Amplify’s Director of Data Analysis said.
Last year, News 3 Anchor Zak Dahlheimer got Amplify's research on the number of kindergarten students on track for learning to read.
According to Amplify, in the 2019-2020 school year, 55 percent of students were on track for learning to read.
But then, the following school year, that fell to 37 percent.
During the 2021-2022 school year, the rate rose to 47 percent.
But so far, during the 2022-2023 school year, Amplify’s research shows that number has gone up to 52 percent.
“Being back in the classroom and consistency for students in the classroom with instruction goes a really long way,” Lambert said.
Amplify's new data released in February 2023 shows schools across the country made progress reducing the number of students at risk for not learning to read, especially in grades K-2.
It also found that Black and Hispanic students made the greatest gains.
“Learning how to read is not a natural process,” Lambert said. “What we know from the research is it takes explicit instruction."
One group of students Gazzerro and Lambert have been concerned about are this year's third graders.
“That cohort of students that actually started kindergarten when the whole world shut down because of the pandemic, we're seeing their losses at least stabilize,” Lambert said.
“For these kids, they don't get to do it over,” Gazzerro added. “They're third graders now. They should have, in many cases, completed their journey of literacy, and yet they found all of this time that would've been dedicated to that was interrupted or impacted in some way.”
Both said, overall, the trajectory is positive, yet early literacy levels are still not at pre-pandemic levels.
But there are ways you can help your child and others move in the right direction.
“For parents, that means books and encouraging kids to talk about topics that they're reading about. Using vocabulary and expanding their experiences with literacy,” Lambert said. “For teachers, we have to explicitly teach kids how to read and how to write, doubling down and buckling down on continuing that strong instruction, and watching for kids that may be struggling to get the extra time and instruction that they need to have.”
Meanwhile, Amplify researchers are encouraged by the data.
“I'm excited by what we're seeing in terms of the bounce back, and [I] really think now is the moment to say, 'See? Literacy matters,'” Lambert said.
Researchers and others will continue working to close gaps while students open new adventures, one book at a time.
“I feel, if you read, you enhance your skills,” Bernier said. “I think that everyone should get the chance to read.”
With the generosity of WTKR employees and the Hampton Roads community, we were able to raise more than $14,000 to help buy books for Hodges Elementary School.
