Clemson partners with state in Reading Recovery program

Published: May 30, 2012

By Christina Cleveland

CLEMSON — Clemson University’s Reading Recovery Training Center is participating in an initiative sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Education to send books to children who have been supported by the Reading Recovery program in the last school year.  

The books are going to 24 school districts across the state and will be dispersed to approximately 2,500 children in first and second grades. They are leveled and specifically selected for each student reader. The children in the program will receive 12 books for the summer; the books work in a series with familiar characters and scenes. The program is designed to minimize the children's loss of reading skills over the summer.

“Research indicates some learners suffer summer reading loss, which if not addressed can leave them behind their peers when they return to school,” said Erica Bissell of the education department. “These students participated in a reading intervention during the most recent school year, and providing books for these readers will give them a chance to practice the reading strategies they have learned during the year and give them a stronger start to second grade.”

A 2009 article by Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen, “Why Summer Matters in the Rich/Poor Achievement Gap,” indicates that summer reading setbacks often occur in children with low-income backgrounds who don’t have access to books. Their research also states if these children are supplied with reading materials for the summer they will benefit just as much as going to summer school.

According to C.C. Bates, director of the Clemson University Reading Recovery Training Center, children labeled as struggling or disadvantaged will lose an average of three months of reading skills during the summer, but children who have access to books will gain a month. 

“As excited as I was to give my kids their packet of books today, they were even more excited than I was; it was such a sweet surprise for them,” said Aiken County teacher Polly Riede. “One of my kids could hardly contain himself, because, as he told me, he didn't own any books of his own at home. Thanks to the state department for their support and to Clemson for organizing the distribution of the books."

Bates, who also is an assistant professor of literacy in Clemson’s Eugene T. Moore School of Education, said she is grateful for the support that the center receives from the state.

“We are very thankful for the opportunity,” Bates said. “We know what the research says about the summer reading setback, and we know the children that we serve are likely to experience this setback because many of them do not have access to books during the summer months. We are thrilled to serve the children, not only during the academic school year, but during the summer as well.”

The program serves school districts statewide, including Aiken, Sumter, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Columbia and several districts in the Upstate.

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