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ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Fewer than 15% of 3rd graders in the Rochester City School District are reading at grade level and only 21% of 8th graders are considered proficient readers according to the most recent state data. The startling statistics are forcing an “all hands on deck” approach this summer.

“I could be grumpy all day long but grumpy wasn’t teaching nobody how to read,” says Michael Patterson, Rochester City Council Member. That’s why this summer, the Rochester City Council stepped up with funding for a summer reading program of its own. “After third grade, you read to learn and in a community, where the vast majority of our kids aren’t reading on grade level, this is all hands-on deck work,” Patterson says. 

Rochester City Council Vice President LaShay Harris and Councilmember Patterson partnered with Primetime585 and the New York City-based Read Alliance to bring a reading camp to Rochester.  The camp teaches phonics-based reading to 90 city kids in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. The kids get a free hot lunch every day, snacks and time for recreation in the school gyms and playgrounds. 

School 22 is one of the locations. On the first day of camp, when they still had open spots, Council Member Patterson actually knocked on doors in the area to find kids. “We literally had kids who came over that day and started and they’ve been here since, that’s the other part of it too, sometimes you gotta just go get them,” Patterson says.

RCSD provides the teachers.  40 teen mentors, like Marilena Diaz, have been hired to reinforce the learning and make it fun.

“I feel like it’s important for them (the kids) to see representation of what they could be in the future,” Diaz says. 

Diaz is off to college on a full lacrosse scholarship in the fall and attributes her success both in the classroom and on the field to a love for learning. But even in high school, some of her friends struggled to read and she thinks social media is partially to blame.  “Now you have shortened words, you have acronyms that stand for different words so, that like translates to when you’re reading and when you’re writing so I definitely see the change with my peers,” Diaz says. 

The most recent data shows 80% of RCSD 8th graders cannot read at grade level. “It’s making me even more motivated to help these kids so when they hit the 8th grade, they’re not facing those same struggles that some of these 8th graders are at the moment,” Diaz says.

“If all we do is stem summer learning loss and we pay the big kids, put some dollars in their pocket, that’s a success. But the goal for the little folks is that the vast majority of them will see a gain of one year in literacy through this 6 week intervention,” Patterson says.

Right now, it’s a pilot program but if it works, Council Member Patterson says he’ll be knocking on doors again next summer. “If you aren’t here this year and you live around here, I’m looking for you,” Patterson says with a smile.

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