Kathleen Swinney, Clemson football players to distribute books, celebrate reading at event for elementary school students

Kathleen Swinney and Clemson University Football players will welcome students from across South Carolina to stress the importance of reading on Wednesday, April 30, at 10:30 a.m. Now in its 10^th year, the Tigers Read! Initiative is organized by Dabo’s All In Team Foundation, faculty from the Clemson University College of Education and Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company.

The idea for the event originated with the outreach work conducted by C.C. Bates, associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Education, and the Early Literacy Center for South Carolina. The center serves the state by providing training and ongoing professional development for reading interventionists and primary grade classroom teachers. By working with Bates and others in the center, teachers hone their skills in early literacy assessment and instructional strategies and the teaching of striving readers and writers.

Bates considers reading the foundation for all academic success, and after the year-round work of improving reading skills, fighting the summer reading setback–dubbed the “summer slide” among literacy experts–is critical to student outcomes. Bates said reading during summer months helps enhance literacy skills and fosters a love for reading.

“Summer reading helps to prevent the ‘summer slide’ by maintaining and reinforcing progress made during the academic year,” Bates said. “When players read a book aloud to the students at the event, they also discuss the importance of practice and liken summer reading to their time spent preparing for football games. It is exciting to see students who attend the event make that connection and become motivated to read.”

The collaboration with Dabo’s All In Team Foundation and Scholastic has allowed the College of Education to distribute nearly 100,000 books to date to first-grade students in 25 districts across the state. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bates and her team distributed books to more than 1,000 children in partner districts. Each year, the students attending Tigers Read! are only a fraction of the total number of students who receive a drawstring bag full of books.

Bates has also used the opportunity to incorporate a research component into the outreach by recruiting a longitudinal sample of first graders who began receiving books in 2017 to research further the effects of reading outreach over time.

Bates said the data suggest that all participating students continued to make gains across grade levels and emerged as stronger readers at the beginning of each new school year. Student achievement measures for first graders from the 2021-22 school year show that those students–now fourth graders–are reading on a sixth-grade level.

Bates said data doesn’t just suggest maintaining progress during the summer; it indicates that a combination of reading intervention, strong classroom instruction and access to books can eliminate the “summer slide” and show student growth in reading and writing.

“We’ve found an extremely effective combo to support children: supply children with books and have the coaches and athletes they look up to discuss the importance of reading,” Bates said.

In addition to student-athletes and the Swinneys, children will meet the Tiger Band, Rally Cats, cheerleaders, the Tiger and Clifford the Big Red Dog®, receive drawstring bags full of books to take home and enjoy a community-sponsored hot dog lunch. Organizers invite media to attend the event to hear from the Swinneys and meet with athletes and teachers in attendance.

For media inquiries, contact Alex Brooks (abrks@clemson.edu, 419-351-0009) or Michael Staton (mstaton@clemson.edu, 864-933-0334).