On Sept. 30, Georgia celebrated the newly official “Georgia Reads Day” with a crowd of second graders and a reading rally at the College Football Hall of Fame, formalizing a statewide effort to increase low state literacy rates.
It’s part of a push to change reading proficiency, particularly for students nearing fourth grade. English Language Arts Milestone awards show that only about 32 percent of all fourth graders are proficient or better in reading — placing it 28th in the national ranking of reading achievement.
In 2023, the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill that requires a “science of reading” based educational approach for kindergarten through third grade students. The Senate also created a 30-person Georgia Council on Literacy alongside a statewide literacy coach role to monitor the implementation of the new educational standards.
In the months since the council announced longtime educator Sarah Richards as the Georgia Literacy Coach, the team has kicked off initiatives and campaigns targeted at supporting schools with reading improvements and bolstering areas more in need.
The Sept. 30 event opened up applications for the Georgia Reads Community Awards, which will be given to 10 communities that have set goals and made progress on literacy improvements in the last three to five years. The communities will have to submit data as part of the application to show the bump in literacy. The awardees will receive a $25,000 award to continue literacy efforts.
“We just want to see that communities have really built on the partnerships that are available within their own communities, that they’ve taken advantage of those and they’re taking steps for improvement,” Richards said.
The council also partnered with former professional football player and author Malcolm Mitchell’s Share the Magic Foundation to host the statewide “READBowl” reading challenge. The football star served as the face of the Georgia Reads Day festivities and literacy movement, playing catch with the children, reading his books and giving out hugs to the crowd. Mitchell will also visit the designated Georgia Reads Communities to host additional reading rallies.
Richards specified that the awards aim to highlight “what’s working” in the state’s literacy efforts. The council primarily focuses on implementing the “science of reading,” a body of research that looks at science-backed methods to literacy education. It focuses on phonemics awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. As required by state legislation, the council also pushes for universal screenings that can gauge literacy and dyslexia reading requirements.
But the community awards won’t go to areas struggling with literacy. When the rates are broken down by subgroup, proficiency data changes: 51.8 percent of third graders are proficient or better, but the rate drops to about 27 percent for Black and Hispanic students. Asian students had about a 65 percent proficiency rate, while students with disabilities sat at 14 percent.
Joy Hawkins, the Executive Director of The Governor’s Office of Student Achievement said programs like a partnership with local mayors and city officials or student mentorships provided by local businesses will help tackle low literacy,
But Hawkins said low literacy is a generational issue, and it takes collective effort to change it.
Most of the effort happens on the ground in Georgia’s schools. Priscilla Lovett, former literacy coach and school business manager at J.W. Dobbs Elementary, said her school has implemented a reading buddies program, a race to read, accelerated reading programs and a book fair — all popular school activities to boost reading. But Lovett said the events all work to make students “motivated and confident.”
“Because we are in an urban community, our students aren’t exposed to the different cultures and resources that other students might be privileged to,” Lovett said. “So, therefore, we try to do everything we can to increase that for them.”
At J.W. Dobbs Elementary, that comes down to free books via sponsors and little libraries, as well as trying to “bridge the gap” between the parents and the school since some don’t have a high school education.
Her students attended Georgia Reads Day to join in Mitchell’s reading rally to “celebrate” the students and their progress. Before bringing in the children, Mitchell said Georgia Reads is “put in place to publicly acknowledge communities who are making those great efforts.”
“I want to keep this momentum going because this is a special day,” Mitchell said. “You will have an opportunity to witness children excited about something that will really uplift them and empower their future in such a basic way.”
A story close to my heart, being an avid reader.