After the Bell

This year’s 2023 After the Bell campaign is the most impactful effort our community can make to provide students with the resources needed to advance their literacy skills and academic success. 

ATB is scheduled for May 1st - May 7th!

Thanks to you, each student served in Reading Partners Colorado will receive a new backpack filled with 6 brand new diverse books to continue building up their own library, a reading journal to track summer reading, and engaging literacy activities and family resources to keep kids reading all summer long.

Click the Donate button above to see how you can help!

How are summer reading backpacks helping students?

 Summer learning loss during elementary school accounts for 66% of the opportunity gap in reading between students from low-income households and their peers from middle-income households. 

Summer learning loss can also be explained by the fact that children from economically-disadvantaged households tend to have access to fewer books and other reading resources than their middle-income, or higher-income, peers (Scholastic, “Access to Books”). Fortunately, summer programming can help minimize summer learning loss and equip students and their families with the tools they need to foster literacy-rich learning environments during out-of-school time. 

Access to books is a critical component of preventing summer learning loss in the area of reading. In fact, research shows that students who have access to at least 6 books over the summer are able to maintain their reading skills (Arlington & McGill-Franzen, 2008).

Reading Partners has seen that our summer reading kits help students and their families stay engaged with reading over the summer. When students return to school in the fall, summer reading helps them start off at a great place and be ready to continue growing their literacy skills.

By providing students with access to books, we ensure that our students have grade- and skill-level appropriate reading materials during the summer months to help encourage ongoing reading and combat summer learning loss.

Current: Reader, Future: Teacher & Artist 

About Reading Partners

Reading Partners is a national non-profit organization focused on early literacy efforts. 

Our mission is to help children become lifelong readers by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction with measurable results. 

Our vision is that all children will have the literacy skills they need to reach their full potential.

We pair volunteer tutors with elementary students (K-5) who are behind grade level in reading. Students receive two 45-minute sessions of one-on-one tutoring each week to help improve their literacy skills. This school year Reading Partners Colorado is serving eleven schools across four districts: Aurora, Denver, Jeffco, and Westminster Public Schools. 

To learn more, visit our main website at www.readingpartners.org/colorado.