By Kathy Mansfield
kathy.mansfield@education.ky.gov

For the fourth year, Kentucky led the nation in Summer Reading pledges during the Chief’s Summer Reading Challenge, a project of the Council of Chief State School Officers and MetaMetrics.

FAB KYEach year, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) collaborates with the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA) to encourage students to participate in the state’s Summer Reading Programs sponsored by public libraries.

Teachers, librarians and parents help children use Find a Book, KY to build personal lists for summer reading and to pledge the number of books they plan to read during the summer months. Find a Book, KY uses the widely-adopted Lexile® measure to match a reader with books that will provide the right level of challenge to support reading growth. School librarians and public librarians assist children and their parents as they make summer reading selections.

This year’s three top schools for the percentage of pledges to read during the summer are Farnsley Middle School in Jefferson County (Kelly Caso, librarian), Wellington Elementary in Fayette County (Kim Blankenship, librarian) and Calloway County Middle School (Angelia Jones, librarian).

This year marks the third year in a row for Calloway County Middle School to be one of the top participants in the Chiefs’ Summer Reading Challenge.

“Promoting summer reading to students is one of my favorite things to do,” said school librarian Angie Jones. “There is a feeding program at the park every week day. Once a week during the summer they have a reading program where they give a free book to every kid there. Isn’t that awesome? Teachers volunteer to go that day and help students choose books. A lot of different folks make that happen for the community.”

For more information about Summer Reading Promotions in Kentucky, visit the “Summer Reading” webpage on the Kentucky Department of Education’s website here.