Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge Student Registration Opens Today as Educators Help Stop the “Summer Slide”
NEW YORK – April 6, 2015 – Today, Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL) launches student pre-registration (K-8th Grade) for the 2015 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge at scholastic.com/summer. Now in its ninth year, this free, global reading program motivates children to read for fun throughout the summer months by logging their reading minutes, earning rewards and helping to break the world record of 304,749,681 minutes read (set in summer 2014). The top elementary school that logs the most minutes this summer will win a visit from bestselling author Michael Northrop, and the top middle school that logs the most minutes will win a visit from bestselling author Varian Johnson.
For Educators (starting April 6, 2015):
- Exclusive access in April: Educators can pre-register their students, class and/or school before the challenge officially launches on May 4th, 2015.
- Chance to win prizes: Educators who pre-register their students before June 30th will be entered to win a free classroom library of 50 books.
- Free summer reading tools:
- Educator dashboard: Educators can have access to track their students reading minutes throughout the summer.
- Emails to parents (in English or Spanish): The educator dashboard provides automated emails for educators to send to students’ parents throughout the summer to remind and motivate them to keep reading.
- Free classroom resources: Educators can access bi-lingual information including: booklists, letters to parents, printable activity sheets, reading logs and reading certificates, and author videos.
For Students (starting May 4, 2015):
- Free original stories and videos from bestselling authors: As kids enter their reading minutes, they can unlock 12 original short stories and access never-before-seen videos from these authors.
- Dynamic creative writing game: Students can play a new “innovation machine” game and write their own short story. This game encourages kids to create a one-of-a-kind story with fun story starters and wacky vocabulary combinations; plus they can enter into a contest to win prizes.
- Ultimate goal of setting a new reading world record: Students read and log minutes to help set a new world record for summer reading. This summer kids need to read beyond the current record of 304,749,681 minutes.
“When students discover a book they love, they are motivated to read more, understand more and learn more, and summer is the ideal time to help make this possible,” said Francie Alexander, Chief Academic Officer at Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company. “The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge has created a global reading movement among schools to get more students to commit to achieving personal summer reading goals in order to help their school achieve top honors – it is a true win-win for 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
- Ninety-one percent of children ages 6–17 say “my favorite books are the ones that I have picked out myself” and 71% of children 6–17 say, “I’m more likely to finish a book I choose myself.” 3
- The majority of children of all ages (6-17) say when reading for fun, they want “books that make me laugh” (70%).4
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, 4) The Kids and Family Reading Report™ 5th edition conducted by YouGov and Scholastic, 2014.
