After School Reads

After School Reads meets the diverse needs of after school staff members by training them on strategies that infuse reading and writing activities into after school activities. The After School KidzLit program, produced by the Developmental Studies Center, is used to provide easy to understand strategies to help counselors make reading an enjoyable experience. KidzLit is a comprehensive plan to actively involve the children in fun, hands-on activities while reading quality literature that relates to their everyday lives. Sites also participate in the Reading is Fundamental National Book program, giving children the opportunity to select a book to keep three times over the course of a year.

2010-2011 Program Outcomes:

  • Training/modeling/observations were conducted for 320 staff members at 25 sites.
  • 13 family reading nights were held with 365 adults and 533 children.
  • More than 16,500 books were distributed through the After School Reads program and Reading is Fundamental.
  • 95 percent of trained After School practitioners are fully implementing the KidzLit curriculum.

PROGRAM IMPACT

The City of Greenacres has been a partner with the Literacy Coalition’s After School Reads program since 2005. The initial trainings were with KidzLit curriculum that gave us many new strategies and ideas about how we could link literature to other activities and make reading fun! KidzLit has sparked a tremendous interest in reading at our program. This year our third graders read more than 100 books, provided by the Literacy Coalition, within a month as part of  a reading challenge. Our implementation of the KidzLit strategies has helped our program achieve the highest Quality Improvement System (QIS) score in Palm Beach County.

We have recently begun working on a new program with After School Reads, KidzMath, which is linked to national math standards. KidzMath makes another subject that strikes fear in the hearts of children incredibly fun and engaging. By using high quality works of literature to spark interest in mathematical concepts, the KidzMath curriculum helps children not only enjoy reading but also feel more comfortable working together to apply basic math skills in problem solving.

Over the past few years we have seen a significant increase in the FCAT scores of our children which we credit to the work After School Reads has done through KidzLit. We anticipate similar increases in FCAT math scores in the upcoming year because of KidzMath.


Jowie Mohammed
Acting Youth Programs Supervisor
Greenacres C.A.R.E.S.