The Golden Isles YMCA is proud to announce the first Celebrate Reading Day on June 21, 2017 from 9 am to 11:30 am. The Celebrate Reading Day program will welcome eight local community leaders to read a favorite childhood book aloud to our summer day campers and Child Learning Center students. Through the Celebrate Reading Day program, the Y hopes to emphasize the role our programs play during the summer months to help reduce the impact of “summer slide” in education.
 
According to a study from the RAND Corporation, the average summer learning loss for low-income students is an average of two months of reading skills, while their higher-income peers make slight gains.  Unfortunately, summer learning loss is cumulative, with low-income students falling further behind after summer without involvement in educational programming.  The Y is committed to providing quality, affordable programs for our children during these crucial summer months. Each day, our summer day campers participate in the Y Camp Readers program, logging a minimum of twenty minutes of reading. Children enrolled in the Y’s Quality Rated Child Learning Center are engaged in a variety of reading and language development activities as part of their daily curriculum.
 
Readers will be scheduled at blocks of time and will share their stories with groups individually throughout the morning. Our featured readers include The City of Brunswick’s Mayor Cornell Harvey, United Way of Coastal Georgia CEO, Virginia Brown, The Brunswick News Life Editor, Mary Starr and YMCA of Coastal Georgia’s President and CEO, Joel Smoker.
 
“The Y has longstanding history with providing quality educational programs for the children and families of Glynn County,” shares Stella Brown, Community Director of the Golden Isles and McIntosh County YMCAs. “We are proud to be part of a community where so many of our leaders and partners are committed to tackling summer learning loss and promoting a lifelong passion for learning.”