{"id":177997,"date":"2026-03-28T04:16:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/177997\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T04:16:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T04:16:27","slug":"staten-island-reading-program-reaches-140000-students-in-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/177997\/","title":{"rendered":"Staten Island reading program reaches 140,000 students in 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Nearly 140,000 Staten Island students \u2014 close to a third of the borough\u2019s population \u2014 have taken part in Readers are Leaders since its launch, a milestone Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella celebrated this week at the Great Kills Library.<\/p>\n

The program, which challenges fourth grade students across the borough to read five or more books over five weeks, has reached a milestone this year with every public and non-public school on the Island participating.<\/p>\n

\u201c140,000 students have participated. Staten Island\u2019s population is about 500,000,\u201d Fossella said to the assembled students and parents. \u201cThat\u2019s close to 30%, give or take, of the people on Staten Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said students have read an estimated 840,000 books.<\/p>\n

\"StatenEvery school on the Island participated in the Readers are Leaders initiative, which targets fourth grade as the critical year for independent reading development.Claire Hamlet<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if it gets one kid reading. To get him hooked on reading, or her hooked on reading, and then never putting those books down for the rest of their lives we achieve our goal,\u201d Fossella said.<\/p>\n

The borough president launched the program 30 years ago as a city councilman. His inspiration came from P.S. 4, his former elementary school, where students who read 25 books could take a shot at dunking their principal into a water tank during the school\u2019s field day celebration.<\/p>\n

Fossella said he was inspired to create a borough-wide program to encourage reading. When developing the challenge, Fossella consulted educators who recommended targeting fourth grade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told by the fourth grade, children really should be able to read independently. They should be able to go to a library. They should be able to pick out books and read on their own. So at that point, we\u2019re gonna say to young kids, young children, it\u2019s up to you now,\u201d Fossella said.<\/p>\n

\"StatenEvery school on the island participated in the Readers are Leaders initiative, which targets fourth grade as the critical year for independent reading development.Claire Hamlet<\/p>\n

A second memory from P.S. 4 also shaped the program.<\/p>\n

In the fifth grade, Fossella said, he received a poor mark on his report card for showing interest in reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked my teacher, \u2018why\u2019d you give me an unsatisfactory?\u2019 She said, \u2018Vito, you can do so much better.\u2019 So it was a signal to me,\u201d Fossella said. \u201cI thought all these years later, putting those things together, that there might be other kids who could read or could reach their potential, but they weren\u2019t reading for whatever reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fossella said those experiences inspired him to create Readers are Leaders.<\/p>\n

Library manager Anna Mason thanked Fossella for his support of Staten Island libraries. She noted the borough president has funded improvements to ensure libraries remain current and modern.<\/p>\n

\"StatenEvery school on the island participated in the Readers are Leaders initiative, which targets fourth grade as the critical year for independent reading development.Claire Hamlet<\/p>\n

Fossella said the support traces back to early in his career, when he saved the Great Kills Library from closing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were going to close this library,\u201d Fossella said. \u201cWe fought to keep it open and fortunately, we were successful and that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today, 30 plus years later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each participating school selects one student as their \u2018Super Reader\u2019 at the end of the five-week challenge. And one classroom per school with 100% participation will earn a pizza party. At the event, students received library cards and gift bags containing books and crayons. <\/p>\n

\"StatenEvery school on the island participated in the Readers are Leaders initiative, which targets fourth grade as the critical year for independent reading development.Claire Hamlet<\/p>\n

When Fossella asked the group about their favorite reads, hands shot up around the room. Titles ranged from \u201cDiary of a Wimpy Kid,\u201d \u201cThe Baby-sitters Club\u201d and \u201cDork Diaries\u201d to \u201cGoosebumps\u201d and \u201cThe Black Stallion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StatenEvery school on the island participated in the Readers are Leaders initiative, which targets fourth grade as the critical year for independent reading development.Claire Hamlet<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more you read, the more you\u2019re able to lead,\u201d Fossella said, explaining the program\u2019s name. \u201cI also think it\u2019s essential to sustaining democracy. The more one understands history and human nature, whatever you want to call it, the more educated they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite technological changes over 30 years, including the rise of social media and smartphones, Fossella said the fundamentals remain unchanged.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading is still the foundation of a great education, of a good life,\u201d he said. \u201cLook at the excitement of these kids grabbing a book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"StatenEvery school on the island participated in the Readers are Leaders initiative, which targets fourth grade as the critical year for independent reading development.Claire Hamlet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Nearly 140,000 Staten Island students \u2014 close to a third of the borough\u2019s population…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-177997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}