The Ames Reads Grade-Level Reading (GLR) Campaign is recognized as a 2014 Pacesetter for making measurable progress on student attendance outcomes and promoting literacy through Day of Action and Summer Learning Day. The community achieved a 12 percent reduction in chronic absenteeism for kindergarten through fifth grades from 2012-13 to 2013-14.
The local GLR Campaign is implementing the following key attendance strategies to drive progress: community-wide attendance awareness campaigns to help parents understand and own the importance of good attendance; school-level messaging, modeling and cultivating the habits of excellent attendance; promoting activities at the beginning of the school year to prevent chronic absence; and implementing broader, on-going efforts to reduce and prevent chronic absence across schools, districts and community partners. Ames Community School District also worked to revise the school attendance policy.
Ames Reads promoted summer literacy through the Summer Learning Day in June, which engaged families and community members. Children were given the opportunity to create giant bubbles, build pinecone bird feeders, read along a story book path and visit the library’s bookmobile. More than 200 books were collected and given to Raising Readers in Story County to distribute through the gift book program.
Reflecting on the community’s progress since it joined the Campaign in 2012, local GLR Lead and President and CEO of United Way Jean Kresse commented, “It’s amazing to see the community’s efforts on literacy and the activities that all lead to third grade reading proficiency. The partnerships developed through Ames Reads are helping to make our campaign a true focus in the community.”
In joining the national network, local communities are asked to develop formal plans to address three underlying challenges that can keep young children, especially those from low-income families, from learning to read well:
• School readiness — too many children are entering kindergarten already behind.
• School attendance — too many young children are missing too many days of school.
• Summer learning — too many children are losing ground academically over the summer.
The Pacesetter honorees were selected from among 76 communities in the Grade-Level Reading Communities Network that participated in a series of activities in 2014 designed to strengthen their work.
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading recognizes the shared ownership for the progress in Ames among the following members of the Ames Reads coalition: Raising Readers in Story County, United Way of Story County, Ames City Council, Iowa State University, Youth and Shelter Services, City of Ames — Office of the Mayor, Iowa Department of Education, Ames Community School District, Ames Public Library, Community Housing Initiatives, Lutheran Services in Iowa and Ames Community Preschool Center.
Ames Reads described its work, challenges and lessons for other communities on the GLR Campaign website’s Tell Our Story page.
Launched in May 2010, the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading is a collaborative effort of funders, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities across the nation to ensure that many more children from low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career and active citizenship. For media inquiries, contact Norman Black at norman@thehatchergroup.com or 301-656-0348