Celebrating a Successful Summer Reading Program

MANSFIELD, Ohio – The Summer Reading Program celebrated a successful first run with festivities at Johns Park on Friday, August 3, with children enjoying a bounce house, hot dogs, games, music, dancing, and even a visit from the Kona Ice truck.

The program began when Mansfield City Schools Superintendent Brian Garverick approached North End Community Improvement Collaborative, Inc. (NECIC) to partner in a summer reading program to assist kindergarten through third graders in reading and computer literacy. NECIC Community Organizer Kay Smith said NECIC’s role was that of transformative convener, bringing people together to make a change.

“That was our role: to convene the people, to form the program, and then the participants took it from there,” she said. 

Those participants included Culliver Reading Center, Crossroads City Center, UMADAOP, and Hedges, with each hosting a group for the reading program. Smith noted that over 100 students participated, most in kindergarten through third grade, with a focus on reading and digital literacy to help them prepare for the third-grade reading tests. “The school’s digital literacy teachers visited each site to support the learning. Part of the problem has been that students cannot maneuver through the computer program used in testing due to their lack of computer experience,” said Smith.

At Crossroads City Center, students attended the program for four weeks, Tuesday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., said City Center Director Nicole Blakley. The city schools’ digital literacy teacher was in attendance three out of the four days, with field trips to the main library on the remaining day each week, she added.

“Just walking around and watching the kids and seeing their progress over the four weeks was awesome, typing and being more comfortable on the computer,” said Blakley.

“The four hours would fly by every day. It was fun. I’m going to miss these kids,” she added.

The program included some fourth and fifth graders that needed a little extra help, and those students also served as mentors to the younger students, said Smith.

“The goal for next year is for the students’ end-of-schoolyear reading level to be easily communicated to the summer reading program so that they may be placed and tutored accordingly,” said Smith.

Lynn Stevenson of Culliver Reading Center said the program was definitely successful, with Culliver students reaching their goal of 500 books read. Students were excited to participate and worked hard to reach their goal, she said.

“I thought we’d have a lot of lessons learned our first year,” said Blakley, “but really, it went very smoothly. There are little things I would tweak for next year, but I think it really went well.”