June 16, 2015Member News

44 Governors' Spouses & 4 Governors Sign On As "Reading Ambassadors" For 2015 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge

NEW YORK, NY – Forty-four U.S. Governors’ Spouses, along with the Governors of Colorado, Vermont and the U.S. territories Northern Mariana Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands have signed on as “Reading Ambassadors” for the 2015 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge and will help spread the important message that children must keep reading throughout the summer months. To jumpstart excitement about summer reading, these Governors and Governors’ Spouses will each deliver 500 new books donated by Scholastic to schools in their states. In addition, many of the Reading Ambassadors will host reading events with local children to kick off summer reading.

The free Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge encourages kids worldwide to log the minutes they spend reading in order to unlock original stories written by favorite children’s authors, earn rewards, and help set a new world record for summer reading, with the goal of topping the 304,749,681 minutes read in summer 2014. The program motivates children to keep reading all summer in order to avoid the “summer slide” — learning losses which can occur when school is not in session.

Teachers, schools and families can register their children in grades K—8 and access free summer reading resources at scholastic.com/summer.

Scholastic gratefully acknowledges the following Governors and Governors’ Spouses, who are serving as Reading Ambassadors for the 2015 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge:

Alabama – First Lady Dianne Bentley
Alaska – First Lady Donna Walker
Arizona – First Lady Angela Ducey
Arkansas – First Lady Susan Hutchinson
Colorado – Governor John Hickenlooper
Connecticut – First Lady Cathy Malloy
Delaware – First Lady Carla Markell
Florida – First Lady Ann Scott
Georgia – First Lady Sandra Deal
Guam – First Lady Christine Calvo
Hawaii – First Lady Dawn Amano-Ige
Idaho – First Lady Lori Otter
Illinois – First Lady Diana Rauner
Indiana – First Lady Karen Pence
Iowa – First Lady Christine Branstad
Kansas – First Lady Mary Brownback
Kentucky – First Lady Jane Beshear
Louisiana – First Lady Supriya Jindal
Maine – First Lady Ann LePage
Maryland – First Lady Yumi Hogan
Massachusetts – First Lady Lauren Baker
Michigan – First Lady Sue Snyder
Mississippi – First Lady Deborah Bryant
Missouri – First Lady Georganne Nixon
Montana – First Lady Lisa Bullock
Nebraska – First Lady Susanne Shore
Nevada – First Lady Kathleen Sandoval
New Hampshire – First Gentleman Thomas Hassan
New Jersey – First Lady Mary Pat Christie
New Mexico – First Gentleman Chuck Franco
North Carolina – First Lady Ann McCrory
North Dakota – First Lady Betsy Dalrymple
Northern Mariana Islands – Governor Eloy Inos
Ohio – First Lady Karen Kasich
Oklahoma – First Gentleman Wade Christensen
Pennsylvania – First Lady Frances Wolf
Rhode Island – First Gentleman Andy Moffit
South Carolina – First Gentleman Michael Haley
South Dakota – First Lady Linda Daugaard
Tennessee – First Lady Crissy Haslam
U.S. Virgin Islands – Governor Kenneth E. Mapp
Utah – First Lady Jeanette Herbert
Vermont – Governor Peter Shumlin
Virginia – First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe
Washington – First Lady Trudi Inslee
West Virginia – First Lady Joanne Tomblin
Wisconsin – First Lady Tonette Walker
Wyoming – First Lady Carol Mead

Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge highlights:

More than one million students have logged over 100 million minutes since the 2015 Challenge launched on May 4, 2015, with more students signing up every day.

This year’s theme, “Power Up & Read,” showcases 12 original short stories written by favorite children’s authors that kids can unlock as rewards. The top children’s authors participating include: Blue Balliett, Patrik Henry Bass, Varian Johnson, Gordon Korman, Michael Northtrop, Maggie Stiefvater and Jackson Pierce, Roland Smith, R.L. Stine, Tui T. Sutherland, Lauren Tarshis, Wendy Wan-Long Shang and Jude Watson.

Free summer reading resources are available for teachers, parents and children, including summer book lists, daily tips, activity sheets, sweepstakes and more.

Bestselling author Michael Northrop (Tombquest series) and bestselling author-illustrator Varian Johnson (The Great Greene Heist) will visit the top U.S. middle school and top U.S. elementary school, respectively, that log the most reading minutes by September 4, 2015.

The top 20 U.S. schools with the most reading minutes recorded by September 4 will be featured in the 2016 Scholastic Book of World Records.

Quotes:

First Lady of Missouri Georganne Nixon, Chair of Governors’ Spouses’ Program for the National Governors Association: “On behalf of the Spouses’ Leadership Committee, we encourage parents and children to read every day and explore these well-crafted summer reading resources. Together we can experience the joy of reading and share the truth of Scholastic’s motto, ‘open a world of possible.’”

Richard Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO, Scholastic: “We greatly appreciate the support of these Governors and Governors’ Spouses, who are serving as positive reading role models for children and encouraging them to discover the power and joy of reading a book. The Reading Ambassadors play a vital role in communicating with parents the importance of independent reading, especially during the summer, and the impact it has on a child’s academic success and their love of reading.”

Summer Reading Statistics:

Teachers spend four to six weeks re-teaching materials students because of the “summer slide – the learning losses which can occur when school is not in session.¹

Children who read four or more books over the summer fare better on reading comprehension tests in the fall than their peers who read one or no books over the summer, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic level or previous achievement.²

The majority of children of all ages (6-17) say when reading for fun, they want “books that make me laugh” (70%).³

For more information about the Scholastic Summer Challenge, please visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/SummerReadingChallenge.

REFERENCES:

(1) Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap, Karl Alexander, Doris Entwistle, Linda Steffel Olson, April 2007.
(2) Summer Reading and the Ethnic Achievement Gap, Jimmy Kim, Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 2004.
(3) The Kids and Family Reading Report™ 5th edition conducted by YouGov and Scholastic, 2014.