GREAT FALLS — All this week we're asking for your support to improve childhood literacy in Great Falls through our annual “If You Give a Child a Book..." campaign.
This year every dollar raised will be used to purchase new books for students from low-income households to add to their home libraries.
KRTV and the Scripps Howard Foundation are partnering with Sunnyside Elementary in Great Falls, a Title I school.
Studies show that students who do not read at their grade level by the end of third grade are four times less likely to graduate high school. And children in poverty are 13 times less likely to graduate than their peers.
One way to fight these trends is by allowing students to choose reading materials for themselves which instills a passion for reading. And that's what this campaign aims to do.
"I'd say 90% of the students I work with, reading is not going to be an activity that they choose on their own. Either somebody is hounding them to read or it's for a grade,” said RaeLee Thornton, an intervention specialist at Sunnyside. “So to get them to want to have that intrinsic motivation to read on their own is fantastic."
If you'd like to help childhood literacy in Great Falls, click here.
Remember: If you give a child a book, you give a child a chance.
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