SAN ANGELO, Texas — Children will be back to school in a few weeks and the San Angelo Independent School District and partner organizations have made improving literacy a top priority this summer.
SAISD’s held a San Angelo READS! summer book patrol pop-up event at Goliad Elementary School Thursday with that goal in mind.
The San Angelo Police Department and Kona Ice of San Angelo were among the many groups who were a part of the event.
“We had about 300 people, so we had a great amount of people here. We love seeing the community come together and be with our community partners and like Kona Ice and we have to be out here. We had our friends at the Police Department School last pick, so it's wonderful just to get the community together and celebrate literacy,” SAISD Community Relations Molly Johnson said.
Pew Research shows students who performed better in the reading section of standardized tests in 2020 frequently read for fun.
All summer, the school district and local organizations have been distributing free books to encourage young readers. They hope the events they’ve put on this summer will contribute to improving literacy for all students ahead of the fall semester.
“We know that it's critically important for kids to be on grade level reading by third grade. So we do a ton of work to do that in the classroom, but it's also important that it extends beyond the school day they need to be read to in their home and starting from even before Pre-K. So that's why we do this is really just to inspire and get people excited and love reading,” Executive Director of SAISD Communications Whitney Wood said.
To prepare for the upcoming semester, parents are encouraged to enroll their children in their respective grade levels. Registration information and event updates can be found at saisd.org.