Forward-Thinking School Districts Incorporate Innovative Reading Solution into Summer Programs

MINNEAPOLIS - March 6, 2014 - PRLog -- The National Summer Learning Association (http://www.summerlearning.org) (NSLA) is pleased to announce that seven school districts, which are part of its New Vision for Summer School Network (NVSS), will include reading as a key component of their innovative summer programs this year.

Participating districts are:  Boston Public Schools; Washington, DC, Baltimore, MD; Richmond, VA; Pittsburgh, PA; Wausau, WI; and FKO AfterSchool, ME.

Through a partnership between NSLA and myON (http://www.myon.com), a business unit of Capstone—the leading school library publisher—students in these districts will have free and unlimited access to myON. This innovative, personalized literacy solution (http://www.readonmyon.com) gives every student unlimited access to thousands of enhanced digital books with flexible supports that are matched to their interests and targeted reading levels, along with tools to track and measure their reading progress. Students can rate and review the books they are reading in a safe, social networking environment, build their own reading lists and take ownership of their own reading.  More than 3.4 million students nationwide are currently reading on myON.

“The importance of providing young people with exciting and engaging ways to read during the summer months cannot be understated,” said NSLA’s CEO Sarah Pitcock. “For low-income youth in particular, it is critical to create a seamless pathway of learning from school year to school year. We are thrilled that through our partnership with myON, thousands of students from NVSS districts will have access to skill-appropriate, engaging books to read over the summer. Just as importantly, school districts will have a powerful, research-based tool to track reading progress over the summer and start the school year empowered by data and results.”

To support students and program staff and ensure that both are getting the most from the powerful myON reader web-based literacy environment, myON will provide individual accounts for every student and staff member in the participating programs. Professional development for staff and ongoing support will be provided, along with the opportunity to participate in myON’s national summer reading challenge, myMAGICALsummer.

“Our team is proud to partner with NSLA and these forward-thinking districts to engage students in the very important and exciting activity of reading throughout the summer months,” said Todd Brekhus, president of myON. “Research shows that students grow as readers when they read books that are of interest in their targeted reading level. Our experience over the past three years, in hundreds of districts across the nation, has been that kids really do enjoy reading during their school breaks when they have the opportunity and access to books.  myON was developed to do both.”

About the National Summer Learning Association

The vision of the National Summer Learning Association is for every child to be safe, healthy, and engaged in learning during the summer. To realize that vision, our mission is to connect and equip schools, providers, communities, and families to deliver high-quality summer learning opportunities to our nation’s youth to help close the achievement gap and support healthy development. In 2009, NSLA launched the NVSS Network with the goal of transforming and repositioning the role and impact of summer school programs.

For more information, visit www.summerlearning.org

About myON™

myON, a business unit of Capstone, develops personalized learning environments for students. myON provides access to the largest library of enhanced digital books with multimedia scaffolds to support student reading at all levels. In turn, myON empowers teachers with real-time, actionable data—number and type of books opened and read, time spent reading, results of regular benchmark assessments, and more—based on embedded Lexile assessments that measure student reading growth. With myON, every student can have access to more than 5,000 diverse titles, which allows students to take ownership of their reading interests and literacy growth.

  For more information, please visit www.myON.com