Evanston Cradle to Career partners are reaching out to the community to request help to address summer learning loss by providing culturally relevant books to Evanston children this summer.
Cradle to Career Executive Director Sheila Merry says decades of reasearch indicate that:
- When children do not have books and access to stimulating summer activities, they lose as much as two tothree months of academic skills during the summer.
- Low-income children are dramatically less likely to have multiple books in their homes and the number of books in the home is highly correlated to academic achievement.
- Students read better and read more when they read books relevant to their own life experience.
- Reading as few as four or five books over the summer can prevent summer learning loss.
Community members can support the book drive by purchasing specially selected books that reflect the diversity of our community, either in person or online from Bookends and Beginnings at 1712 Sherman Ave.
Purchased books can be left at Bookends and Beginnings or dropped off at Evanston Cradle to Career on the second floor at 2010 Dewey Ave.
Evanston Cradle to Career (EC2C) partner organizations are committed to ensuring that all Evanston young people have the opportunity to achieve their potential and help children’s literacy grow during the summer months by ensuring that Evanston’s children have access to literature they will be excited to read.
Merry says increasing access to diverse, high quality books can be one important step in our commitment to closing our community’s achievement gap.