With these funds I will...purchase books for my Summer Book Mobile. This will be the second year that the Summer Book Mobile will be in business. We had great success last year and would like to continue providing books to the children in our community.  The effects of summer reading loss are well documented. Summer reading loss over time can have devastating effects on young readers.  The greatest risk is many times seen with students that are reading below grade level. Summer reading loss among students that are already at risk learners and those from low socioeconomic homes is well documented by researchers. These students typically have limited access to reading materials at home and often have caregivers that place little emphasis on literacy development.  These students rely heavily upon schools to provide them with reading material during the school year.  Why not just go to the public library? It has been said that library use among poor students drops off when the public library is more than six blocks from the home. Studies have also shown that by providing just six books over the summertime allows for students to maintain reading growth attained throughout the school year. Providing ten to twenty self-selected books for summer reading, could allow students to actually achieve reading growth.  While not all students that will be served are from low socioeconomic homes, all students will benefit from summer reading by maintaining reading growth achieved during the year or by even making gains. Our community of K-6 students has a need to maintain their reading growth throughout the summer to avoid a whole year of academic struggle. The Summer Book Mobile will meet this need by providing two books to every patron each week right in their own neighborhood. What can be better than having books brought to you?

The money from this grant will meet an additional need by allowing my colleague and I to provide a wide variety of literature that will not only appeal to K-6 students in our area, but it will also allow for a wide selection of “good fit” literature. By “good fit” I mean literature that is on each student’s individual reading level.  Having books that students can and will read on their own will help students tremendously to maintain their reading growth.

The funds will be used to purchase high volume, popular fiction titles that appeal to our readers. All books will be purchased from Scholastic. Such as: 

Laugh Out Loud reader pack of 20 books for $91

Best of Scholastic grades K-1 25 books for $107

Fly Guy 10 books for $26

Best of Goosebumps 6 books for $26

Flat Stanley 4 books for $14

Disaster Strikes 4 books for $13

Judy Moody 4 books for $17

Captain Underpants 7 books for $30

Pinkalicious 5 books for $13

Laugh Out Loud 10 books for $46.50

Back Up Plan