This summer in Burien and the surrounding areas, 2,359 students in the Highline School District received 28,308 new books for summer reading.

Book Up Summer, a program of Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program, combats summer learning loss by helping students at high-poverty elementary schools maintain their reading skills over the summer, and return to school in the fall ready to learn. Kindergarten, first and second grade students at the following elementary schools received books through the Book Up Summer program this summer:
Beverly Park Elementary, Highline School District, Seattle
Bow Lake Elementary, Highline School District, Seatac
Cedarhurst Elementary, Highline School District, Burien
Hazel Valley Elementary, Highline School District, Burien
Hilltop Elementary, Highline School District, Burien
Madrona Elementary, Highline School District, SeaTac
McMicken Heights Elementary, Highline School District, SeaTac
Midway Elementary, Highline School District, Des Moines
Mount View Elementary, Highline School District, Seattle
Seahurst Elementary, Highline School District, Burien
Southern Heights Elementary, Highline School District, Burien
White Center Heights Elementary, Highline School District, Seattle

Across Washington State, the Book Up Summer program served 9,204 students at 68 schools in 21 districts in 14 counties with 110,575 new books to students from low-income families.

Book Up Summer is based on a 2010 Department of Education study centered on increasing students’ access to books in the summer months. The premise is simple, if we give children their choice of books to read, letting them pick out their own from a wide variety of literature, they will read them. If we give them enough books to keep them reading all summer long, they will maintain their reading skills, and not slide backward, as happens with so many children from low-income families during the summer months.

Summer Learning Loss
Each summer, while children from affluent families make progress on their reading, the reading skills of students from low-income families actually decline. When this trend is multiplied throughout 12 years of school, students from low-income families graduate several years behind – if they graduate at all.
Linda Wheeler, recently retired librarian at Beverly Park Elementary School said this about the program:
“Juan Carlos started second grade this year – and his reading jumped 3 levels over the summer! 
We couldn’t believe it! When I asked him how he got so much better over the summer, he said he 
‘read all the Book Up Summer books over and over all summer long.’ This is huge success!”