Evanston Cradle to Career partners are reaching out to the community to request your help to address summer learning loss by providing culturally relevant books to Evanston children this summer.  This is what we know from decades of research:

 Summer Learning Loss.  When children do not have books and access to stimulating summer activities, they lose as much as 2-3 months of academic skills during the summer.

  • Access to Books.  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.
  • Culturally Relevant Books.  Research shows that students read better and read more when they read books relevant to their own life experience.
  • Reading Matters.  Reading as few as four or five books over the summer can prevent summer learning loss.

Community members can support this book drive today by purchasing specially selected books that reflect the diversity of our community, either in person or on-line from our partner in this effort, Bookends and Beginnings. Books can be purchased here: http://www.bookendsandbeginnings.com/diverse-book-drive or they can stop by the store in the alley behind Saville’s and help us fill our bookshelves for our community’s children.

Purchased books can be left at Bookends and Beginnings or dropped off at Evanston Cradle to Career, 2010 Dewey, 2nd Fl, Evanston, IL 60201.

Evanston Cradle to Career (EC2C) partner organizations are committed to ensuring that ALL Evanston young people have the opportunity to achieve their potential.Together we can help our children’s literacy grow during the summer months by ensuring that Evanston’s children have access to literature they will be excited to read.  Increasing access to diverse, high quality books can be one important step in our commitment to reversing our community’s achievement gap.