By Paula Sakey, Executive Director of the Boston Public Library Fund
As summer draws to a close, we’re wrapping up one of my favorite programs of the year at the Boston Public Library: Summer Reading.
Throughout the summer, thousands of children, teens, adults, and families have come through the doors of the Central Library and our 25 neighborhood branches to read, learn, explore, and spend time together. Thanks to donors who support the Boston Public Library Fund, the Library was able to offer hundreds of story times, performances, hands-on programs and, of course, access to books.
Summer Reading helps students keep reading and learning during the months away from school. But it offers something equally important: the freedom to choose what interests them, discover books they love, and experience reading as something joyful.
That feels especially meaningful this year as Massachusetts makes a new commitment to childhood literacy. In June, Governor Maura Healey signed An Act Relative to Teacher Preparation and Student Literacy. The new law strengthens literacy instruction in kindergarten through third grade, supports better preparation for teachers, and calls for regular screening so children who are struggling with reading can be identified and helped earlier.
This is important work and public libraries play an essential role alongside our schools. Learning to read is only the beginning. Libraries have the opportunity to help children discover why they might want to keep reading for the rest of their lives.
A child can learn how to sound out words and understand a sentence in a classroom. But becoming a reader can happen anywhere. It happens when a parent reads the same picture book for what feels like the hundredth time. It happens when a child wanders through the stacks and finds a book about dinosaurs, outer space, or a person who looks like them. It happens when a reluctant reader discovers graphic novels. And it happens during Summer Reading, when children get to choose books because they want to read them — not because they are going to be tested on them.
At the Boston Public Library, a family can walk into any of our neighborhood locations and find books, meet authors, attend early literacy programs, and enjoy opportunities to learn and explore — without having to buy anything, register for an expensive enrichment program, or worry about whether they can afford to participate. It is simply there for them, free to all.
Massachusetts’ new law is an important commitment to our children, but schools can’t do this work alone. As I think about the thousands of people who participated in Summer Reading at the Boston Public Library this year, I’m reminded that literacy doesn’t begin and end with the school calendar.