Published on March 23, 2021 by The Reminder

By Carolyn Noel

Reading Success by 4th Grade recently hosted their second-annual Early Literacy Leadership Summit to inform community members and leaders about their work and yearly progress.

Reading Success by 4th Grade works to improve reading literacy and success in the city of Springfield. According to Chrissy Howard, program manager of Reading Success by 4th Grade, their goal is to get all kids reading proficiently by the end of third grade. To make this possible, the organization works with community partners and provides programs to support early childhood education.

The summit was broadcast virtually on March 3 and hosted over 100 community and state leaders, organizations pertaining to early literacy and local and state elected officials. One keynote speaker was Tom Weber, Eastern Bank Foundation fellow and former Massachusetts Commissioner for Early Education and Care. Weber spoke on the priorities of the newly-formed Massachusetts Business Coalition for Early Childhood Education.

Howard said the conference focused on how businesses across the state are stepping up to support early childhood education, care and literacy initiatives and how other community members can help.

“A lot of our audience were community members, leaders, nonprofit people, just people in our city who are super concerned about reading literacy,” she said. “We made a lot of different connections. Folks who might not have seen these organizations or didn’t know they had a footprint in the city were really inspired by the work already going on and some folks were surprised, they didn’t know the whole landscape. That’s kind of what we worked on was showing off our literacy landscape and the complex ecosystem which requires so many partners.”

Howard spoke on Reading Success by 4th Grade’s work within the community and their focus on capacity building and systems alignment. She said the organization has been around for over 10 years and, since the beginning, has worked to fight systemic barriers children in the area face when it comes to education and literacy.

“Things are not fair and that’s the problem,” she said.

Reading Success by 4th Grade aims to help children facing these unfair inequalities and give them the chance for success.

“The idea that every kid is awesome and deserves their very best life. Every grown up is awesome and deserves to do their very best work. And literacy, being able to read and communicate and talk, and not just literacy as in reading a book, but literacy as in knowing the world around you and all of those things... that’s how humans work through the world. And if we can’t give that to kids, what are we doing?” she said.

Howard said she hopes that the summit will continue next year and that local community members and leaders will continue to partner with organizations for child literacy.

“We want to get better so we need that partnership and that back and forth,” she said.

Those interested in learning more about Reading Success by 4th Grade are encouraged to visit their website at https://www.readby4thgrade.com/.

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