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Summer reading is so different than reading for school. Here are 3 reasons to encourage it for kids.

Here's a hint: FREE BOOKS!

Summer reading is so different than reading for school. Here are 3 reasons to encourage it for kids.

1. "Summer Slide." It sounds fun, but it's not what you think!

Ooh, like a water slide? Who doesn't love a water slide?

But nope. "Summer slide" is the backslide that happens when a kid's learning activities stall out for three whole months. Sociologists say the summer slide compounds over the years of a child's schooling and is a main factor for big differences in achievement between students from low-income and high-income families.

Not the kind of slide we like, is it? Quote via Reading Is Fundamental.

2. This highly scientific reason from my teen son:

"When I read during the summer, I have more time to get lost in the book and luxuriate in it. I get to read for the love of reading, and not for an assignment, not on a deadline. Summer reading has been the path to me actually loving reading."
— Axel, son of Angie Aker

And he's not wrong, according to Alfie Kohn, a critic of strictly regimented reading:

"Nothing contributes to a student's interest in (and proficiency at) reading more than the opportunity to read books that he or she has chosen. But it's easy to undermine the benefits of free reading. All you need to do is stipulate that students must read a certain number of pages, or for a certain number of minutes, each evening.

When they're told how much to read, they tend to just 'turn the pages' and 'read to an assigned page number and stop,' says Christopher Ward Ellsasser, a California high school teacher."

If we want reading to become a lifelong source of joy, letting kids truly pick their own material and time and place for it is key.

When your hands fall asleep from holding up a book you're engrossed in. That. Photo by SpiritFire/Flickr.

3. Free books for kids in grades 1-6!

It's a pretty sweet deal from Barnes & Noble. Here's how it works:

  • Kids read ANY eight books. Yes, ANY eight books, and they can be from the library or home or wherever.
  • They fill out this brief log (no book reports, no allotted amount of time).
  • They bring it in to Barnes & Noble and pick out a free book from the list.

If you can help a kid truly love reading, you can open up an entire world of possibilities for them. All the knowledge they need to do anything they set their mind to is in a book somewhere, just waiting for them to find it.

That moment when your eyelids are too heavy to read one more word. Photo by WoodleyWonderWorks/Flickr.

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Capital One
Capital One
Capital One Impact Initiative

Veterans across the country are struggling to find stable housing. This affordable housing community is ensuring Los Angeles vets have a place to call home.

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After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population.

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years," Jackson said. "The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation."

One day in 2019, Jackson felt a sudden sense of hope for a better living arrangement when she caught wind of the ongoing construction of Veteran's Village in Carson, California — a 51-unit affordable housing development with one, two and three-bedroom apartments and supportive services to residents through a partnership with U.S.VETS.

Her feelings of hope quickly blossomed into a vision for her future when she learned that Veteran's Village was taking applications for residents to move in later that year after construction was complete.

"I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, 'Okay, this is going to work out,'" Jackson said. "The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one."

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Virginia poised to become the first southern state to ban the death penalty

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Virginia is poised to become the 23rd U.S. state—and first state in the South—to ban the death penalty after lawmakers on Monday approved legislation prohibiting the practice.

"We're dismantling the remnants of Jim Crow here in the New South. Abolishing the death penalty is another step on that journey," tweeted Democratic Del. Jay Jones, who's running for state attorney general.

Both chambers of the General Assembly passed earlier versions already this month. On Monday, the Senate passed the House bill in a 22-16 vote; the House then voted 57-43 on the measure to ban capital punishment. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has indicated his support for the measure.

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Capital One
Capital One
Capital One Impact Initiative

Veterans across the country are struggling to find stable housing. This affordable housing community is ensuring Los Angeles vets have a place to call home.

Courtesy of Creative Commons
True

After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population.

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years," Jackson said. "The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation."

One day in 2019, Jackson felt a sudden sense of hope for a better living arrangement when she caught wind of the ongoing construction of Veteran's Village in Carson, California — a 51-unit affordable housing development with one, two and three-bedroom apartments and supportive services to residents through a partnership with U.S.VETS.

Her feelings of hope quickly blossomed into a vision for her future when she learned that Veteran's Village was taking applications for residents to move in later that year after construction was complete.

"I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, 'Okay, this is going to work out,'" Jackson said. "The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one."

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Sumo Citrus®
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Here's what it takes to grow one of the most loved fruits in the world

"It's what we're leaving to our kids."

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Don Bay has been in the citrus business for over 50 years now, and according to him, his most recent growing endeavor has been the most challenging. Alongside his son Darren and grandson Luke, Don cultivates Sumo Citrus®, one of the most difficult fruits to grow. The Bay family runs San Joaquin Growers Ranch in Porterville, California, one of the farms where the fruit is grown in the United States.

Sumo Citrus was originally developed in Japan, and is an extraordinary hybrid of mandarin, pomelo and navel oranges.

The fruit is temperamental, and it can take time to get a thriving crop. The trees require year-round care, and it takes five years from seed to fruit until they're ready for harvest. Thanks to expert citrus growers like the Bay family though, Sumo Citrus have flourished in California. Don and his son Darren worked together through trial and error to perfect their crop of Sumo Citrus. Darren is now an expert on cultivating this famously temperamental fruit, and his son Luke is learning from him every step of the way.

Don, Darren and Luke BayAll photos courtesy of Sumo Citrus

"Luke's been involved as early as he could come out," Darren said in a YouTube video.

"Having both my son and grandson [working with me] is basically what I've dreamt about," said Don. "To have been able to develop this orchard and have them work on it and work with me — then I don't have to do all the work."

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President Biden marked today's COVID milestone with a loving and sobering message to all Americans

Jeff Mason/Twitter

Just over a month after passing the grim milestone of 400,000 deaths from COVID-19, the United States has surpassed another one. As of today, more than half a million Americans have been lost to the virus that's held the world in a pandemic holding pattern for almost a year. It's a number that seemed unfathomable even six months ago, and yet here we are.

Despite increasing vaccine rollouts allowing us to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the loss we've experienced is immense. Having a president who not only understands loss on a personal level—having endured the tragic loss of his wife and baby daughter earlier in life and the death of his son just six years ago—but who conveys with compassion the grief of the nation as we mark this milestone is a comforting change.

Tonight, the White House honored the 500,000+ lives lost with a display of 500 candles lining the steps of the building, with each candle representing 1000 Americans. The president and first lady, along with the vice president and second gentleman, held a memorial moment of silence outside the South Portico as a military band played "Amazing Grace."

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