According to Georgia Reads Georgia Council on Literacy, in Georgia, one in 10 adults are low illiterate, and 62% of third graders, 68% of fourth graders and 69% of eighth graders are not reading proficiently. This phenomenon is known as the Georgia Literacy crisis, which has been decades in the making.
Atlanta News First’s Books to Kids program aims to combat this crisis. Launched in 2016, the program has now distributed 102,000 books to 31 schools in Metro Atlanta. During each donation from the program, five books are placed into backpacks that students will receive.
According to Atlanta News First, “The Books to Kids initiative started in 2016 as a way to encourage young learners to read. Since then, Atlanta News First has handed out more than 102,000 books to children across 31 metro Atlanta schools.”
Midtown librarian Brian Montero highlights the importance of student literacy and how it impacts their academic lives.
“Literacy is key to every part of your academic success,” Montero said. “Literacy is a big part of your intellectual, emotional development and ability to read, write and understand ideas. Literacy really is the number one key for any kind of academic success.”
Midtown senior and reading bowl captain Carmella Marra believes literacy can help impact students in multiple aspects of their lives.
“Literacy is an essential skill to succeed and necessary to pursue a career,” Marra said. “Literacy goes beyond simply reading. It is about interpreting the world around you: social media, legal documents and communication.”
Joshua Skinner, a reporter from Atlanta News First, explained the process of donating these books to kids in elementary schools.
“We’ve given out more than 2,000 books today [to Brookview Elementary], more than 102,000 books overall,” Skinner said in a press release at Brookview Elementary. “We give each kid [a backpack with] five books in it.”
Brookview elementary’s media and educational technology instructor, Nichole Mcintosh explained the importance of the donations to the school.
“[Atlanta News First] chose our school due to our enrollment numbers, which are on the lower end compared to neighboring schools,” Mcintosh said. “The donations helped our students have access to more books as they built their personal libraries. It is always necessary to get books into the hands of kids. Programs like this bring the community in the school so our students have greater exposure and access to community partners and representatives.”
Additionally, Montero noted the importance of literacy not just for academic success but also for social success. Literacy helps people to have a better understanding of the world around them, Montero said.
“[Literacy is] key for understanding the world around you on a basic level, which would include people’s and ideas,” Montero said. “Without reading, it becomes really hard to process any information. [It gives a] better understanding of the world around you.”
Skinner explained the importance of donating books to elementary schoolers, specifically third graders.
“These are the third graders,” Skinner said. “That’s important because that’s about the time that kids go from learning to read to reading to learn. Studies show that if kids are not proficient in reading by the time they finish third grade, they never wind up catching up, so that’s why it’s so important to be involved with this.”
Marra said kids gaining literacy skills at a young age is important to instill a further joy for reading
“It makes me really happy to see the elementary schoolers and middle schoolers at the reading bowl competitions because I know they are building a passion for reading,” Marra said.
Books to Kids sponsor Ken Nugent from the Ken Nugent Law Firm said the goal of improving academic success through reading is exactly why this program started.
“If you read well, you test well and you advance in life, so that’s what we want for all these kids,” Nugent said in the same press release.
In addition to programs like Books to Kids, Montero believes more ways to help combat the literacy crisis include setting an example for young children by reading to and with them and by allotting time for reading during class time for those who may not have the resources or time at home.
“[Other ways to combat the crisis are] encouraging reading books by having more time in class for silent reading where everyone has a book and everyone is reading,” Montero said. “And having teachers read more. Adults modeling reading is key too because we want to see that change in society. We have to start with ourselves if students see teachers reading or reading to students. When you’re a kid, having your mom or dad read to you is a key experience.”
Nugent seconds this, as he believes his personal access to reading helped influence his future desire to read more.
“Reading and education are so important, we’ve got to invest in our children,” Nugent said. “Reading is where it all starts. I remember as a kid myself we had reading contests at the local library and that really got me juiced to read five, ten books during the summer and the reading carries over.”
Reading aloud to children has been proven to impact and improve literacy.
According to the University of Rochester Warner School of Education and Human Development, “Research shows that children who are not reading at grade level by third grade face significant challenges in achieving academic success and graduating on time. Spending just 15 minutes a day reading aloud can build knowledge, strengthen family connections and set children on a path to long-term academic success.”
Montero believes a potential reason for the continuation of the literacy crisis is due to the readily accessible internet and the development of reading online. A study from Reading Rockets found that students who read digital text at school had a lowered reading comprehension.
“People are reading books less and what they do read is on the internet or screens so they’re not really reading, they’re scanning and scrolling, so they’re not fully processing the words that they are reading,” Montero said. “They can process the words but they’re not understanding what they’re taking in so they get overwhelmed, [there is] not a lot of time for deep focused reading.”
Mcintosh furthers this, explaining that technology access in young children causes a gap in literacy.
“The literacy crisis affects all schools,” Mcintosh said. “Children are given access to electronic devices instead of books at an early age. This creates a literacy divide. We need to get back the basics by replacing electronic devices with actual books.”
According to Pro Literacy, there is a direct link between the ability to earn a family living wage and someone’s literacy level. They found that people with a lower economic status stay at low literacy levels into adulthood.
“A lot of lower income people are affected [by the literacy crisis],” Montero said. “More people with less generations whose families who have not been in any education, or higher education, [people who] maybe only went to junior high or ninth or tenth grade in high school haven’t been growing up with families who had access to education.”
Books to Kids donates books to elementary schools in order to start improving literacy at a young age. Montero believes this practice is very beneficial.
“It’s great to get books in [students] hands and get them starting reading early, developing their reading skills at an early age so when they get into middle school they have a solid foundation of reading,” Montero said.
