With school closures and the move to remote learning necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, families and educators are looking for supplemental educational opportunities to bolster learning. A new study by NWEA projects that students who lack steady instruction during the school shutdowns might retain only 70% of their annual reading gains as compared to a normal year. This compounds the annual issue of reading skill loss known as the summer slide. One resource that educators can consider sharing with families is Scholastic's free Summer Read-A-Palooza program.
Starting Monday, May 4, kids can join the Scholastic Summer Read-a-Palooza in the newly created summer zone on Scholastic Home Base, where they can explore free resources, read select ebooks, engage with fellow readers and favorite authors, and keep Reading Streaks™, which also help unlock a donation of 100,000 print books from Scholastic, distributed by United Way Worldwide.
Activities include:
- Reading free digital books. Exclusive to the summer zone, kids will have access to select full ebooks in their entirety.
- Unlocking book donations for home libraries: For every two consecutive days a child checks into the zone they will create a Reading Streak which will unlock a new free print book for a child with limited or no access to books. Reading Streaks are earned when kids check in to the Read-a-Palooza zone to confirm they have read that day. With the goal of unlocking all 100,000 books by July, United Way Worldwide, the world’s largest privately funded nonprofit, will distribute the books across the country to locations where access to more high-quality books is needed most.
- Sharing reading progress. Kids will be able to create and print individualized reading reports summarizing their reading progress.
- Earning personal reading milestones. Kids will be able to earn awards ranging from bronze, silver, gold and diamond levels for their reading streak progress while collecting accessories to dress up their avatar.
- Joining a community of readers. The summer zone offers kids a safe social platform to interact with friends and make new companions along the way.
To learn more about Scholastic Summer Read-a-Palooza and access free summer reading resources, visit: http://www.scholastic.com/summer.
