Chicago Public Schools Celebrates Read Across America Day

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools (CPS) celebrates Read Across America Day within the District and beyond. Read Across America Day, which falls on March 2, was created by the National Education Association in 1998 to provide an annual renewal of excitement surrounding literacy among children.

Amid the nationwide Read Across America Day celebration, CPS celebrates literacy via Districtwide initiatives and ongoing efforts at the school level.  Last month, CPS celebrated historic gains documented in literacy. The District ranked top in reading gains among the 40 participating large urban Districts, according to the Education Recovery Scorecard published by researchers at Stanford and Harvard Universities and subsequent analysis from the Council of Great City Schools (CGCS). The District’s Black and LatinX students saw growth ahead of where they were reading before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The recent report outlining our top ranking among large urban districts confirms our academic recovery efforts are on track and that we encourage and celebrate reading everyday, including on this special day,” said CPS CEdO Bogdana Chkoumbova. “I hope teachers, school leaders, families - especially our students -  will join me and take some time out today to enjoy the simple and powerful act of reading.” 

The District’s CPS PK-12 Vision for Advanced Literacy, promoted over the past five years, emphasizes the reading of diverse and engaging texts as one of five key daily literacy practices. As part of this vision, the District has curated Skyline ELA-aligned independent reading libraries, culturally- and linguistically- diverse classroom and school library infusion sets, and take-home book packs to build students' home collections. Skyline is the District’s K-12 high-quality and culturally-relevant online curriculum. 

CPS has also made thousands of high-quality diverse texts available through the CPS Virtual Library through which students and families can connect directly to e-book readers for easy access to books, articles, and databases in or outside of school. In addition, Chicago Public Library, in partnership with CPS,  launched The 81 Club, a program designed to ensure that all Chicago students have access to free, high-quality library resources. Chicago Public School students have direct and instant access to the resources of 81 Chicago Public Library (CPL) branches. Students can get their 81 Club cards in person at any of the 81 CPL locations, through their classroom at school, or through the CPS Sora app on their school's CPS Virtual Library hub.

The improvements made by the District regarding literacy can be attributed in part to the additional instruction students are exposed to on a daily basis. During the 2021-22 school year, the District established the Tutor Corps program, to provide what’s called “high-dosage tutoring,” or tutoring in small groups at least three times a week for 30-minute sessions during the school day. The program began with 475 tutors in 214 schools after seeing the success of some earlier tutor programs in District schools and has since trained hundreds of Chicagoans to serve as literacy tutors for kindergarten through fifth grade students and math tutors for sixth through twelfth graders at schools most impacted by the pandemic on the South and West Sides of Chicago.

For the 2023-24 school year, the Tutor Corps program is in 229 schools with tutors continuing to with the support of more than 600 tutors as of September 2023.  

District schools, such as Bronzeville’s Ida B. Wells Preparatory Academy, are seeing the importance of extra supports, and how that yields gains in reading on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR).

“Our school motto, ‘All roads lead to college’ starts here at the elementary school level. School leaders, teachers, parents, our school community and the students are collaborators in making sure the journey to postgraduate success runs smoothly,” said Wells Principal Vincent Izuegbu. “It’s amazing to see our students shine and we expect they will continue to do so.”

More information about the CPS Literacy program is available on the District’s website. 

About Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is dedicated to providing a high-quality education to all students, beginning with the District’s free full-day preschool programming for four-year-old scholars and continuing through neighborhood, magnet and selective-enrollment elementary schools that provide a rigorous K-8 education with schools that specialize in the fine arts, world language and culture, dual language, STEM, International Baccalaureate (IB), classical programs, and more. The rising District-wide freshmen-on-track and high school graduation rates reflect the hard work of the CPS community, including families, staff, and students across 635 schools. CPS celebrates the diversity of its more than 322,000 students who cite 182 home languages. Learn more about CPS at www.cps.edu and connect with CPS on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.