The East Haven School District is kicking off its next Reading Challenge. Last year’s Reading Challenge was a success—participants read more than 74,000 books. This year’s goal is 80,000 books. Why is reading so important, and why the challenge? Reading is a skill, just like adding and subtracting. To be a proficient reader, a student must be fluent—that means being able to speak or write with ease. Words are pronounced and flow with emphasis and meaning. A proficient reader must be able to use contextual clues to gain understanding, make inferences, compare and contrast, make connections to other text, and formulate a critical stance with supporting evidence.

Reading is pivotal to unlocking doors of success in the areas of math, science, and the arts. It cognitively engages students to explore other worlds that are unfamiliar to them. Reading books with different settings, other perspectives, historical references, life-changing themes, and about places, in and out of time, broadens students’ horizons and background knowledge. This exposure, hopefully, causes them to think and apply their knowledge to other experiences. Reading enriches the development of vocabulary and broadens one’s perspective of how diverse the world is.

The goals of the Reading Challenge are to build: a community of readers, students’ vocabulary, students’ background knowledge, students’ comprehension, students’ skills in understanding complex text, and students’ love of reading.

The district encourages each child to read this summer. For more information about the Reading Challenge, visit www.east-haven.k12.ct.us or the District App.