Outcome

When I started this program I did have expectation of what I would learn only what the kids themselves would learn. Yes the kids took a lot from this program: Leadership skills, reading skills, the ability to follow directions, getting outside, being involved and playing with other, but I took away way more than they could have. I learned that I can help others and be successful at it. Some of the kids parents emailed with stories of the outcome of the program on their children. Going into this I was hoping to keep kids reading scores at what they were at the end of the school year. I got an email from on parent who's daughters reading score went up one reading score. My son who was behind at the end of the year was almost caught up. Theses results showed me that what I did helped.

The next thing that I got out of this project was to see how hard kids really do work. I think that sometime parents don't think that their kids are trying or trying hard enough. This was something that for me got put to sleep. I watched kids come in and struggle with reading and even with their struggling they would work so hard and never complain. Every day they would just come and work so hard. I asked one little boy how come he tried so hard and he told me "because if I try and try I will be able to be able to do it and do it good." If we all had this type of attitude towards everything we did then could you image what we would have could do?

Overall I feel that I learned so much from these kids and the community that I live in. I am also so glad that I was able to help so many kids over the summer and was able to encourage and make reading fun!

Email from a parent

Summer Reading

For my project I wanted to not just get the kids reading but to get them to have fun while reading. I know as a mother that if I can make something fun then it doesn't seem like such a chore and I felt like reading is no different. I decided that if we could read in the park this would be more fun for the kids and also get them out of the house and doing something outdoors. When we had our first reading in the park on May 26th 2015 we only had about 20 kids come. On the last day that we got together we had 58 kids come and participate in our activities that day.

 As the program progressed we changed things that to make them better for the kids. We started doing an independent reading when we first got there. For this we would read for 20 minutes independently or in small groups with older kids pairing up with younger kids. At this time I would also walk around and take time with the younger kids and help them read books that were on their reading levels. I feel that this part of the program was extremely important because it offered kids to time to make sure they got reading in and to read books that they like. One of the things that came from this that was not something I planned was the older kids got to learn and practice leadership skills. The older kids would get to where they didn't even need to be asked to get into groups the older kids would just get with some of the younger kids and make sure that they knew what they where doing and help them read or read to them. 

This is what it looked like
when kids read in small groups
with an older kid reading to younger
kids

This is what it would
look like when kids would
independent read.

The next thing that we did for the day was read a book as a group. When doing this I would have the kids take turns reading the book. By taking turns it gave the kids each a turn to read out loud. Reading out loud helps improve ones reading skills and is an important part of reading so something that I wanted to make sure we did. After we would finish reading the story we would get into small groups and do retail of the story. Retail is where someone will retail the order that events happened in the book and also point out important ideas that happened. This was something that I wanted to make sure I really focused on this summer because if someone can't remember what they read and what happened then it doesn't do them much good. Retail is something that is used in the elementary schools in my area and wanted to help improve these skills.

This is one of the kids reading
out loud during the main
reading

For the rest of the day we would work on a craft that went along with what ever book we read. This was also an other time that the older kids were able to use their leadership skills to help the younger kids do the craft and help them get a snack.



*All parents of kids pictured consented

How It Started

I want to start by sharing some background on why I decided to use summer reading as my project for my EDGE program.  First off what is the EDGE program? This is a program that SUU designed to get students engaged in their education. In this program students are given the opportunity to do projects in one of the following areas; community, creativity, global, leadership, and outdoor engagement. I did mine in community because I wanted to give back to my community.

Now that we know what I did the program for now a little about me. My name is Kendra Jones and I am a mother of 6 kids ranging from the ages of 12 to 3 year old twins. I have four kids that are school age and every year I tell myself "Ok I am going to make my children read all summer." Well then life happens and summer is over and my kids have read like 10 times all summer. I have one of my sons that is a slower reader and needs some extra help. I started doing some research and found out that most kids over the summer lose any where from a half to a full grade leave of reading over the summer. This would be say your child is on a 3rd grade reading level when they come back from summer could be any where from a 2nd to a 2.5 grade reading level. After learning this I decided that I had to do something different to help him and other kids knowing that I was not the only parent out there who let the summer get away from them. So this is where my summer program started!

My Family