JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Mayor Donna Deegan honored the newest winners of her River City Readers literacy initiative Wednesday at a dinosaur-themed \u201cUnearth a Story\u201d end-of-summer reading party at Pablo Creek Regional Library.<\/p>\n
At the event, Deegan also launched the next chapter of her citywide literacy challenge, a partnership with Duval County Public Schools, the Jacksonville Public Library and other community organizations.<\/p>\n
Since its launch, River City Readers has inspired Jacksonville families to log more than 3 million minutes of reading collectively, a milestone for the initiative aimed at improving literacy scores in Duval County.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery minute our kids spend reading is an investment in their future, and Jacksonville families have invested more than 3 million of them,\u201d Deegan said. \u201cThat tells me our city understands that literacy is the foundation of opportunity. I can\u2019t wait to celebrate our winners and dig into the next chapter of this challenge together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latest River City Readers winners are Leia Tobias, 4; Ezra Yi, 5; and Sophia Lynn Vause, 7.<\/p>\n
The celebration included fossil making, \u201cpasta paleontologists,\u201d \u201ctricera-toss\u201d and other prehistoric-themed activities. Hundreds of children also received free branded backpacks and books aboard the mayor\u2019s Bookmobile.<\/p>\n
New app to track reading minutes<\/p>\n
As part of the challenge\u2019s next phase, students attending Duval County Public Schools \u2014 including traditional and charter schools \u2014 will log their reading minutes through PageHive, a new app developed by the district.<\/p>\n
Accessible on phones and computers, PageHive gives each student a personalized dashboard with a virtual bookshelf displaying books they have read or are currently reading, along with the ability to rate titles. <\/p>\n
Teachers can add read-aloud books to students\u2019 dashboards, and the platform generates data reports on reading minutes by student, teacher, grade level and school.<\/p>\n
Families will access PageHive through an icon on the Duval County Public Schools website. Private and homeschooled students will continue logging reading minutes through Beanstack.<\/p>\n
\u201cPageHive puts the joy of reading right at our students\u2019 fingertips,\u201d Duval County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier said. \u201cWhen a student can build their own bookshelf, rate the books they read and love, and watch their minutes add up, reading stops feeling like an assignment and starts feeling like an adventure. We\u2019re proud to partner with Mayor Deegan to make sure every Duval County student is part of this challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
More information about River City Readers is available at jacksonville.gov.<\/a><\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Mayor Donna Deegan honored the newest winners of her River City Readers literacy initiative Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,1038,28,348,116,351,118,117,66724,68768,15853,349,146987,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-360925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-duval-county-public-schools","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-public-library","tag-literacy-initiative","tag-mayor-donna-deegan","tag-northeast-florida","tag-river-city-readers","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}