{"id":62614,"date":"2025-12-16T20:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62614\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T20:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:04:09","slug":"eagles-tight-end-kylen-granson-promotes-reading-in-upper-darby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62614\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles tight end Kylen Granson promotes reading in Upper Darby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eagles\u2019 tight end Kylen Granson is providing a spark for Upper Darby students to embrace the love reading.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Granson\u2019s foundation, KG\u2019s Kids,<\/a> hosted its first event in the Philadelphia area, Karnival of Books, at Garrettford Elementary School<\/a> in Drexel Hill, where the foundation gave out 500 free books for students.<\/p>\n

Granson played college football in Texas, then was drafted and played for the Indianapolis Colts before joining the Eagles in March.<\/p>\n

KG\u2019s Kids hosted the all-day free book fair to ensure that the Garrettford students would receive two brand-new books. Over the years, the foundation has given away 111,000 free books.<\/p>\n

\"OnOn Tuesday Philadelphia Eagle Tight End Kylen Granson’s foundation KG’s Kids hosted its first event in the Philadelphia area, Karnival of Books at Garrettford Elementary School in Drexel Hill. Above, Granson’s father, David, discusses the categories of the books with the students coming to pick them out. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES)<\/p>\n

Granson had hoped to be on hand himself to speak to the students, however with the Eagles game moved up to Saturday, he had to report for practice on what is normally his day off.<\/p>\n

In his place, his father, David Granson, was on hand for the daylong event, which offered over 1,400 culturally diverse, grade-level titles.<\/p>\n

The foundation points to research showing children with at least 20 books at home achieve the equivalent of three additional years of education over their school career.<\/p>\n

It started at home<\/p>\n

David Granson said while his son loves to read, he was first an avid video game player and with two parents who were both educators, they saw that his schoolwork was suffering.<\/p>\n

\"KylenKylen Granson arrives at the Linc ahead of the Los Angeles Rams game on Sept. 21. When he was young, his school work was suffering due to video games and his parents put their foot down, saying he can play video games every day for the same time that he reads. (AP Photo\/Chris Szagola)<\/p>\n

His mom, Heather, created a system that rewarded Kylen: With every minute he read he was allowed to play video games for that amount of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe read 30 minutes, he could play video games for 30 minutes and when those 30 minutes were over it was shut off and he had to earn more time,\u201d the dad said.<\/p>\n

Encouraged to read, Kylen began to explore until he found his spark.<\/p>\n

\"GarrettfordGarrettford Elementary substitute teacher Nimrah Khan helps third-grade student Jaxon Mixon pick a book during Kylen Granson’s foundation’s KG’s Kids Karnival of Books. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat allowed him to find his book, \u2018The Lightening Thief,\u2019 by Percy Jackson. (It) was the book that got him hooked,\u201d David said. \u201cIt quickly became a situation where he wanted to read a whole lot more than he wanted to play video games, and so it\u2019s been his world ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heather taught every grade from kindergarten through sixth, as well as being a principal and a reading interventionist, and has used that expertise with the foundation.<\/p>\n

They brought the foundation to Indianapolis the year after Kylen was drafted by the professional football team the Indianapolis Colts in that city.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re looking to expand into Philadelphia,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

Garrettford is the first stop.<\/p>\n

\"GarrettfordGarrettford Elementary School students look over the selection. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES)<\/p>\n

David said the foundation was so successful in Indianapolis that it was difficult to leave, and they will keep that as a home base and branch into Philly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see some playoff football,\u201d David said. \u201cThis is year five for him (as a professional) and he has never witnessed a playoff game. He has never played in a playoff game. We\u2019re going to get to do it this year, it looks like, so we are really excited about it,\u201d David said. \u201cHe loves it here, loves the organization, everything \u2014 the guys, the staff \u2014 we\u2019re hoping to be here for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia Eagles tight end Kylen Granson on the field against the Minnesota Vikings on Oct. 19 in Minneapolis. (AP Photo\/Stacy Bengs)<\/p>\n

Asked what he was most proud of, the elder Granson, a former Texas football coach himself, said, \u201cHe\u2019s smart. There is a lot more to him than football. He was able to create opportunities for himself. He got academic scholarships before he got football scholarships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually Kylen went to Rice University, where he already had an academic scholarship, before transferring to Southern Methodist University and graduating.<\/p>\n

3rd grade is key<\/p>\n

Garrettford Elementary Principal Allen Brydges was excited to have the opportunity to welcome Granson\u2019s foundation, which he called a great role model for students.<\/p>\n

\"GarrettfordGarrettford Elementary School Principal Allen Brydges and Granson’s father, David, right, direct the students. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES)<\/p>\n

\u201cHis level of reading came way before being an athlete, and that is what led him to the NFL,\u201d Brydges said. \u201cHe has read pretty much every book out there. The goal today is every student will go home with two free books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brydges said educators are always trying to teach the importance of reading, but when you have someone with the clout of an NFL player, it \u201cbecomes cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The principal stressed the importance of getting young people reading proficiently before third grade and at Garrettford they focus on reading, including visits to the library where students visit weekly, sometimes multiple times a week.<\/p>\n

Brydges acknowledged young people have numerous other activities that can draw attention away from reading, such as games and social media, and that many people don\u2019t actually read entire books anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re definitely seeing that where kids just want to see everything in quick clips,\u201d Brydges said. \u201d All the research shows that you\u2019ve got to get kids reading, and loving reading before third grade \u2026 research shows the results are unbelievable how far they go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inversely, children who struggle to read by that point suffer down the road.<\/p>\n

He said Granson\u2019s foundation dovetails with the district\u2019s literacy program to develop the love of books.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Mr. Granson\u2019s goal out there today: He\u2019s got books that are on their level that are really interesting, nonfiction athletic books, every realm that hopefully the kids find that spark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brydges said another plus is the diversity of books, \u201ccharacters in the books that look like our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brydges said Kylen Granson has promised to return to the school himself in the future to make up for not being able to make it Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eagles\u2019 tight end Kylen Granson is providing a spark for Upper Darby students to embrace the love reading.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[212,182,139,28,210,147,149,148,150],"class_list":{"0":"post-62614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upper-darby","8":"tag-delaware-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-top-stories-dtd","13":"tag-upper-darby","14":"tag-upper-darby-headlines","15":"tag-upper-darby-news","16":"tag-upper-darby-township"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}