Read on Arizona backs spring break reading initiative to promote literacy

Read on Arizona is encouraging parents to read to their children while they are out of school during spring break.

Read on Arizona’s Literacy Director Terri Clark said parents can spend as little as 15 to 20 minutes a day reading to their child to help make a difference in their literacy skills. 

Clark said it’s important to allow children to select the books they want to read. Parents can make reading fun and interesting for their children. Going on vacation and visiting new places during spring break is a great opportunity to get children enthused about reading.

“If you’re going to the zoo, read a few books about the zoo before they go, or about their favorite animal before going and so you can talk about what you read, talk about what you might see at the zoo, things like that,” Clark said.

The goal is to raise awareness around how parents can help their children engage in reading at a young age, while promoting literacy skills. 

“We say parents are the secret sauce to a child’s learning and again, learning never stops,” Clark said. “So, if a parent is well equipped to know the things they can do when their child’s out of school, that’s top of mind.”

Clark said another way to make reading engaging is to read out loud to a child as they play. Even having a child act out a story with their toys can make reading an adventure.

Why is reading so important for young children?

Clark’s group is behind the Arizona Literacy Plan 2030 initiative to boost third grade reading scores across the state. Only 36% of third-graders across the state are reading proficiently, according to data from the Arizona Department of Education. 

Clark’s group wants to raise reading scores and increase the percentage of third-graders reading proficiently to 72%. If students struggle to read by third-grade, they are more likely to fall behind throughout the rest of their education, and are less likely to graduate from high school. 

Part of the plan is to invest in Arizona teachers getting trained in the Science of Reading, which has been proven to improve reading levels. Also, training literacy coaches in the program to help train teachers is another part of the effort.

Providing children with access to quality early childhood education is another key part of the literacy plan. Arizona ranks 44th in the nation when it comes to four-year-olds being enrolled into preschool. 

“The best example or fact I can give you to prove is that there’s been some strong research that correlates that vocabulary at the age of four, so before they enter kindergarten, is one of the leading predictors of a child’s reading ability by the end of third grade,” Clark said. 

The state needs to invest in children and in teachers on a much larger scale, she said. Other states such as Mississippi, which ranked last in the nation for fourth-grade literacy, invested heavily in literacy coaches and having teachers trained in the Science of Reading. 

After implementing new literacy policies, Mississippi moved up to No.9 in the nation when it comes to fourth grade reading scores. 

Clark said students being able to comprehend and read at a young age benefits the entire community.

“Literacy is the key to student achievement, to a strong workforce, and ultimately to Arizona’s future. And that’s because that third grade milestone of reading really sets them up for being able to be prepared to read to learn,” Clark said. “And we also say, and this is I think where we need to build some awareness is that kindergarten and first grade are the most critical reading instruction grades.”

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Reporting by “Arizona Horizon” Education Solutions Reporter Roxanne De La Rosa. Her role is made possible through grant funding from the Arizona Local News Foundation’s Arizona Community Collaborative Fund and Report for America.

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