About
Everybody Reads provides books and literacy support to service providers and caregivers in order to support the efforts of SFUSD and the broader community to interrupt learning loss patterns when students are out of the classroom.
GOALS
Support caregivers/families as children’s first teachers.
Increase time families spend reading together.
Support caregivers to develop as leaders and mentors.
Provide tools, support and resources to families in service of academic and social gains.
WHY READ?
Children learn more new words from reading than from television.
Books expose children to new ideas and in doing so build new knowledge.
Reading supports the development of critical thinking skills and empathy.
Students that read more achieve at higher levels in school settings.
82% of children ages 5 to 8 say they love reading. This drops to 61% by ages 9 to 11.
Why Summer Reading?
Summer is a crucial time for learning, but doesn’t always get utilized as such; each summer, students can lose up to three months of reading growth, making it possible for them to fall more than two years behind grade level over the course of the five summers between kindergarten and fifth grade. This learning loss can account for up to 50% of the gap in academic outcomes between Black and brown students and their white and Asian peers. Further, research makes clear that providing caregivers with tools and support to help their children reduce aggression, disruptive behavior, and defiance both enhances students’ academic experience and reduce the incidence of youth arrests, convictions, and violent acts. Everybody Reads sets out to take advantage of summer as prime time for making academic and relational gains.
Why Social Justice?
Children are aware of injustice and experience it every day, yet we commonly think of action against social justice as something for adults to be concerned with. The authors of the books in this program speak to us about developing a positive identity, becoming aware of others, and taking action against injustice. The books provide examples of children taking action and making history, which can enhance the resilience and imagination of the children reading the books.