Scholastic visited Amesti Elementary School from Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) in Santa Cruz, California, earlier this month to kick off their summer reading!
With a special surprise visit from Clifford the Big Red Dog, students, school leaders, and teachers, gathered for a read-aloud from Assistant Superintendent Kasey Klappenback. Together, school leaders and Scholastic representatives shared more about the need for summer reading programming and the long-lasting effects that reading can have on a child’s life.
This event highlighted PVUSD’s free summer pilot of Scholastic Literacy Pro, an e-book program and reading assessment tool, for all K-5, which will reach 2,800+ students. As part of PVUSD’s summer reading program, nearly 12,000 students across the district will go home with book packs and family engagement materials from Scholastic.
Assistant Superintendent Klappenback reads Growing an Artist by John Parra from the Rising Voices: Elevating Latino Stories Collection to 2nd and 3rd grade students. Director of Expanded Learning, Jennifer Bruno, seen listening alongside students.
For the last three years, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District has used Scholastic LitCamp, a summer reading strengths-based program that encourages literacy skills, social-emotional learning, and engagement to help build students’ reading practices.
This event and the summer programming reflect the district’s larger initiative to build student’s literacy skills to increase access to books and prevent the ‘summer slide’. Research from the Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report™ tells us, 41% of kids get most of the books they read for fun over the year from their school, making summer initiatives like this more critical than ever, as access to books diminishes during this time.
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