Blog

Summer Learning Matters.
Creating new opportunities for summer learning can help close the achievement gap between low-income students and their more privileged peers, as the summer slide is a major contributor to the discrepant outcomes between these two groups. While Brookfield students did not initially have access to a school-sponsored summer program, a handful of key partners in the Oakland Reads Campaign stepped forward to fund and facilitate a summer of robust literacy programming for this school community. Participating students will return to school this fall with their grade-level literacy skills intact, avoiding several months of “catch up” teaching, and placing them on a path towards greater success as they progress in school

Weaving Together Academic and Emotional Skills.
This summer’s activities are being facilitated by an Oakland Reads partner organization. Girls & Boys Moving Forward is a gender-specific tutoring and mentoring program that improves students’ proficiency in reading and writing while also teaching life-changing social and emotional skills. Led by a team of diverse and caring young adult mentors, this small-group program helps students explore their identities through reading, discussing, and writing about emotionally rich and meaningful novels. While students are improving their academic skills—like reading fluency, comprehension, and writing—they are also building emotional intelligence, self-awareness, relationship skills, and self-confidence. These skills are crucial to young people’s ultimate success—both in school, and in life.