- This year's title 1 recipient for NBC 26's and the Scripps Howard Fund's "If You Give A Child A Book..." campaign is Tank Elementary School.
- 91% of the students at Tank Elementary School are considered low-income. (source: WDPI)
- Click, Scan the QR code below, or Text "read26" to 50155 to give today.
(The following was taken directly from the broadcast script of this story)
September 6th is National Read a Book Day. Now is your chance to make a difference in a child's life through our If You Give A Child a Book.... campaign.
This year's Title 1 school recipient is Tank Elementary School in Green Bay.
Now that school is back in Session, we got the chance to meet some of Tank's students and got to hear from them, what it means to fall in love with reading.
(Mason Schwarts/4th grader at Tank Elementary School)
"It's like an adventure on paper." "Sometimes you take scary adventures or fun adventures."
(Kaylee Ramirez/4th grader at Tank Elementary School)
"When everybody is downstairs watching a movie or watching a Packers game I would instead go upstairs and read a book."
Kaylee and Mason are one of the lucky ones. The literacy forecast for America's children is sobering. According to a study from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2019) 25 million children in the U.S. cannot read proficiently.
(Jill King, Reading Interventionist at Tank Elementary School)
"Really just the more you read the better you become there's no magic formula, to be honest, so getting the kids the books they want to read really helps."
At Tank Elementary School, 91% of the students enrolled are considered low-income, that's according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
In economically disadvantaged areas, there is one age-appropriate book for every 300 children.
But there is good news. Researchers at Reading is Fundamental say if a child grows up in a home with 100 books, they have a 90% probability of completing
9th grade, compared to 30% in bookless homes.
(Jill King, Reading Interventionist at Tank Elementary School)
"When kids have books at home they're reading at home and they're reading here with me they are reading in the classroom. Just being able to read a lot throughout the day and in a lot of different places helps with the shift for some of the kids and the lightbulb just clicks with the kids and the love of reading just happens."
And that's what NBC 26 and the Scripps Howard Fund is hoping to spark that magic moment when kids slowly, then suddenly fall in
love with reading.
(Kaylee Ramirez/4th grader at Tank Elementary School)
"It helps me read more and I can read other books that are not even my level but I know how to read it."
If you are interested in donating to our If You Give A Child A Book... campaign, 100% of your donations
go toward buying new books for the students at Tank Elementary School to take home and keep forever.
Click HERE, or Scan the QR code that will take you to a safe page to donate.
You can also text "Read26" to 50155.
