Latest news with #NationalLiteracyInstitute
Fox News
02-06-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Second lady's 2025 summer reading challenge targets declining literacy scores among students
America's second lady Usha Vance has announced the "Summer Reading Challenge," encouraging children across the country to open up a book this summer. "Adventure, imagination, and discovery await – right between the pages of a book," writes the second lady in a letter. "We are excited to invite all children (K-8) to participate in the Second Lady's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge," the letter continues. Children are encouraged to read 12 books of their choice between June 1 and Sept. 5 — and track their progress through a reading log issued by the White House. Nicole Reeves, communications director for the second lady, told Fox News Digital that Ms. Vance is very excited to announce this project in the hope of engaging young readers throughout the summer. "It is essential that we encourage our youth to continue learning outside of the classroom, and this challenge provides an excellent opportunity to do so," Reeves added. In the log of their progress, students must list the book titles and author, the date they finished reading the books, and a brief reflection about the favorite book they read. The National Center for Education Statistics found in a 2022 report that the average reading scores among 9-year-old students declined five points compared to 2020, marking the largest average score decline in reading since 1990. Approximately 40% of U.S. students cannot read at a basic level, according to the National Literacy Institute. It was also found that almost 70% of low-income fourth grade students cannot read at a basic level. The institute also found that "struggling readers" suffer both socially and emotionally. Reading promotes positive mental health outcomes, helping reduce stress and anxiety, according to the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). Children who complete the Second Lady's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge will receive a personalized certificate and a small prize. They will also be entered in a drawing for a chance to visit Washington, D.C., with a chaperone.
Fox News
01-06-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Second lady's 2025 reading challenge targets declining reading scores among students
America's second lady Usha Vance has announced the "Summer Reading Challenge," encouraging children across the country to open up a book this summer. "Adventure, imagination, and discovery await – right between the pages of a book," writes the second lady in a letter. "We are excited to invite all children (K-8) to participate in the Second Lady's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge," the letter continues. Children are encouraged to read 12 books of their choice between June 1 and Sept. 5 — and track their progress through a reading log issued by the White House. Nicole Reeves, communications director for the second lady, told Fox News Digital that Mrs. Vance is very excited to announce this project in the hope of engaging young readers throughout the summer. "It is essential that we encourage our youth to continue learning outside of the classroom, and this challenge provides an excellent opportunity to do so," Reeves added. In the log of their progress, students must list the book titles and author, the date they finished reading the books, and a brief reflection about the favorite book they read. their favorite book that was read. The National Center for Education Statistics found in a 2022 report that the average reading scores among 9-year-old students declined five points compared to 2020, marking the largest average score decline in reading since 1990. Approximately 40% of U.S. students cannot read at a basic level, according to the National Literacy Institute. It was also found that almost 70% of low-income fourth grade students cannot read at a basic level. The institute also found that "struggling readers" suffer both socially and emotionally. Reading promotes positive mental health outcomes, helping reduce stress and anxiety, according to the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). Children who complete the Second Lady's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge will receive a personalized certificate and a small prize. They will also be entered in a drawing for a chance to visit Washington, D.C., with a chaperone.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
Malcolm X used reading to reach his full potential. Will kids now do the same?
Put yourself inside a 6-by-8-foot prison cell, no window, bare concrete walls. A concrete slab juts out from the wall with a mattress to lay on. There's a creaky desk and chair and, in the corner, a wooden pail to defecate in. For 17½ hours a day, this is your reality. You do have a pen and paper. And there is a library nearby, but only with books. No multimedia center here. No smartphone, no television, maybe one or two radio stations, but only for an hour at night. Those other six-and-a-half hours are spent either working in the laundry or walking outside in the yard. Could you do it? For 39 months? Malcolm X did, and if he hadn't endured this cruelly deprived reality, we would have never heard of him. At Charlestown State Prison (now Bunker Hill Community College), Malcolm Little, as he was called at the time, endured suffocating idleness and boredom. He turned to the books in the prison library for, at the very least, a distraction from the thought of being incarcerated. As he explained to Alex Haley years later: '…I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.' On May 19, 2025, Malcolm X would have been 100 years old. He only made it to 39. That itself is tragic, but it would have been even more so if his mother Louise had never taught him how to read. Louise gathered her seven children around the table during the Great Depression, her husband Earl killed after being run over by a streetcar, and asked them to read aloud from the dictionary, the Bible, and from newspapers established by Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey and Grenadian politician T.A. Marryshow. 'A strong-minded mother,' Malcolm wrote to his older brother Philbert while incarcerated, 'has strong-minded children.' According to the National Literacy Institute (NLI), not only are 21% of American adults illiterate, but also '130 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children.' Imagine if Louise did not have the ability to read to Malcolm or teach him how to read aloud and hear his voice gain strength. Would he have been able to survive those hellish months in prison? Would he have been able to write his now-famous speech, 'The Ballot or the Bullet,' delivered at Cleveland's Cory Methodist Church on East 105th Street? In prison, as Malcolm read, 'months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned.' Reading, even in that tiny, ancient, decrepit cell, released him. 'I never had been so truly free in my life,' he wrote in his autobiography. 'Black Fourth of July': Before it became a federal holiday, Boynton activist knew Juneteenth needed a celebration Smartphones have the power to capture the mind of a child or teenager and place it on a hamster wheel fueled by dopamine, an imprisonment of distraction. In 2025, reading a book takes a backseat (is it even in the car?) to the eye strain required to take in a 15-second soundbite, watch a ball strike a line of dominos, enjoy a new music video or scroll an endless clothing catalog. At Charlestown, Malcolm threw himself into reading a wide range of titles. He cracked open an old copy of Shakespeare's Macbeth, unsure of what exactly he was reading. But he had time and little to no distraction, so he dug into the etymology using a dictionary. As he improved, he was eventually transferred to Norfolk Prison Library, and the prison library there was large enough for him to find more specific titles. He devoured Frederik Bodmer's The Loom of Language, studied Grimm's Law, read ancient Persian poetry and joined a Great Books discussion group, Machiavelli's The Prince being one of the 17 books discussed. Here's hoping it doesn't take prison for children to crack open a new book and learn about another world. Patrick Parr's third book is Malcolm Before X, published by the University of Massachusetts Press. He grew up in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and graduated from Cuyahoga Falls High School in 1999. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Malcolm X shows the power of reading, even decades later | Opinion
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Democrats disseminate information: It's time to unleash propaganda
Back in the 1990s, I worked for an organization marketing to engineers. When surveyed, this group insisted they preferred their information straight — no pretty pictures, plain text emails, just the facts. When we tested their self-reported preferred delivery methods against a combination of evocative imagery and more emphatic text, guess which won? While highly educated engineers wanted to see themselves as 'above' falling for the crass tactics of marketing and propaganda, they were just as susceptible as the rest of us. This reminds of today's Democrats and their approach to communication. Pitching for Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential bid, President Obama stated, 'Joe Biden sent you a check during the pandemic. Just like I gave people relief during the Great Recession. The thing is, we didn't put our name on it because it wasn't about feeding our egos.' Obama seemed to find it unseemly to demand credit for an act of duty. Noble, but, in 2024, grossly misguided. Even Biden has now acknowledged that he paid a high price for failing to aggressively and regularly tout his achievements. His 'put your head down and just do the job,' ethos put him in the political 'if a tree falls in the forest,' conundrum. If you do things that benefit Americans, and they don't know you did them, politically, it's as if you did nothing. Many Democrats expect the media to do this work for them. This is incredibly naïve in today's information ecosystem, in which 'truth,' in and of itself, has no news value. Media will present a politician's lie with the same credibility as an undeniable truth. Somewhere in the 14th paragraph, you may get notice that the statement is false, but how many even read that far? It is no longer the political press's job to sort truth and fiction. That's not considered 'objective.' They report what political actors say and respond to pressure from them. Democrats still live in the world of 'All the President's Men,' in which noble journalists uphold American ideals. They live in a media museum. Democrats still believe, like the engineers at the top of this piece, that an 'intelligent, well-informed public' thirsts for unvarnished truth. They have not yet realized that the tools of marketing and propaganda do not work only for lies — especially when, per the National Literacy Institute, 54 percent of adults read below an sixth grade level. Marketing and propaganda tools can also be used to spread the truth. Case in point: University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public studied social media content regarding the 2023's Lahaina fire. The top YouTube video discovered on the social platform X was a surprise. It was, in fact, a deep dive into the actual causes and circumstances of the fire, free from misinformation and conspiracy theories. Democrats need to speak in a language audiences understand. It's the language of social media, of reality television — not of think tanks, policy papers and wonkfests. Marketing and propaganda are not dirty concepts to be sniffed at. They are America's lingua franca in 2025. Speak them, or be ignored. Leonce Gaiter is a writer who also works as vice-president of a marketing agency. His latest novel is a modern take on the bildungsroman called, 'A Memory of Fictions (or) Just Tiddy-Boom.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
31-01-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Democrats disseminate information: It's time to unleash propaganda
Back in the 1990s, I worked for an organization marketing to engineers. When surveyed, this group insisted they preferred their information straight — no pretty pictures, plain text emails, just the facts. When we tested their self-reported preferred delivery methods against a combination of evocative imagery and more emphatic text, guess which won? While highly educated engineers wanted to see themselves as 'above' falling for the crass tactics of marketing and propaganda, they were just as susceptible as the rest of us. This reminds of today's Democrats and their approach to communication. Pitching for Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential bid, President Obama stated, 'Joe Biden sent you a check during the pandemic. Just like I gave people relief during the Great Recession. The thing is, we didn't put our name on it because it wasn't about feeding our egos.' Obama seemed to find it unseemly to demand credit for an act of duty. Noble, but, in 2024, grossly misguided. Even Biden has now acknowledged that he paid a high price for failing to aggressively and regularly tout his achievements. His 'put your head down and just do the job,' ethos put him in the political 'if a tree falls in the forest,' conundrum. If you do things that benefit Americans, and they don't know you did them, politically, it's as if you did nothing. Many Democrats expect the media to do this work for them. This is incredibly naïve in today's information ecosystem, in which 'truth,' in and of itself, has no news value. Media will present a politician's lie with the same credibility as an undeniable truth. Somewhere in the 14th paragraph, you may get notice that the statement is false, but how many even read that far? It is no longer the political press's job to sort truth and fiction. That's not considered 'objective.' They report what political actors say and respond to pressure from them. Democrats still live in the world of 'All the President's Men,' in which noble journalists uphold American ideals. They live in a media museum. Democrats still believe, like the engineers at the top of this piece, that an 'intelligent, well-informed public' thirsts for unvarnished truth. They have not yet realized that the tools of marketing and propaganda do not work only for lies — especially when, per the National Literacy Institute, 54 percent of adults read below an sixth grade level. Marketing and propaganda tools can also be used to spread the truth. Case in point: studied social media content regarding the 2023's Lahaina fire. The top YouTube video discovered on the social platform X was a surprise. It was, in fact, a deep dive into the actual causes and circumstances of the fire, free from misinformation and conspiracy theories. Democrats need to speak in a language audiences understand. It's the language of social media, of reality television — not of think tanks, policy papers and wonkfests. Marketing and propaganda are not dirty concepts to be sniffed at. They are America's lingua franca in 2025. Speak them, or be ignored. Leonce Gaiter is a writer who also works as vice-president of a marketing agency. His latest novel is a modern take on the bildungsroman called, 'A Memory of Fictions (or) Just Tiddy-Boom.'
