- Pinevale Elementary students will get four free books as a part of Scripps and ABC 27's "If You Give a Child a Book" campaign.
- Georgia is the 8th most illiterate state in the nation at 76.4 percent.
- Watch the video to hear from students and educators about how these programs help with literacy.
BORADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Helping children develop a love of learning one book at a time, I’m Malia Thomas, your neighborhood reporter in Valdosta.
I’m back at Pinevale Elementary School to check out a book giveaway meant to help with childhood reading.
My first time at Pinevale was the Harry Potter book giveaway back in September; students received a free copy of the first Harry Potter book.
Tuesday, the students are now back at the media center for their first ever book fair, where they're receiving four free books.
"For our students, they already come to us a lot of times behind coming into kindergarten so a lot of them don't have the resources that they need."
I checked with the National Center for Education statistics. Georgia is number 42 in the state for literacy. That means we're the 8th most illiterate state in the nation at 76.4 percent.
Pinevale Elementary's stats are higher than the state's average, hovering in the upper 80 percent, thanks in part to giveaways like this and their Spill the Tea program, which emphasizes parent-child reading time.
The difference these initiatives make can be seen in fourth grader Chance Perry who tells me school helped foster her love of reading.
"What I love about reading is that it brings out this more the more imaginative fun side of me, and it helps me with my writing and it helps me just learn lots of new words."
You might remember Kimberly Knight, Pinevale's media center specialist.
She tells me the special part about the book fair and other initiatives like this is that students will be able to read at home with their parents, which helps increase their literacy.
"Parents are the building blocks for literacy for our students children look at their parents and those are the people that they emulate and they want to become and they want to be better at what their parents approve of."
By Friday, 600 students will be taking their new books home.
The fun doesn’t stop here. Pinevale Elementary will be hosting their Literacy Across the Contents game night on January 18.
