Now More Than Ever – Put Reading First for #MilFams

Yesterday’s release of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, the “Nation’s Report Card”) Long Term Trend Results reported a sharp decline in reading scores since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, with the average 13-year-old declining 4 points since the previous assessment in the 2019-2020 school year. This compounds the steady decline for the past decade, which shows scores for the same age group declining 7 points since 2012. ?

For military children, the challenges they and their peers face, including during the pandemic, are often exacerbated by military family life. Our military-connected children change schools on average 6-9 times and move 3 times as often as their civilian family peers. Combined with approximately 100,000 uniformed military parents still deploying and/or setting out to sea each year for months at a time, these transitions and separations across their K-12 journey reinforce the need for innovative programs and services that bring connection, joy, and positive habits to our military families. Maintaining their learning gains and avoiding learning losses due to these stressors depends on such support.?

And that’s why United Through Reading continues to listen to those we serve, innovate accordingly, and evolve our programs and services, all centered around joyful reading habits built at home and maintained during time apart and transitions. Our unique value proposition, shaped and supported by our extraordinary staff, Board of Trustees, partners, and Literacy Advisory Council, is that our programs and services reinforce and strengthen military families’ emotional bonds and well-being, while also enhancing military-connected children’s literacy development.?

Simply put, our programs and services continue to be relevant, and are needed now more than ever.?

In Maintaining a Living Relationship: The Impacts of Participation in United Through Reading, Erica Hawvermale of the D'Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families - IVMF at Syracuse University, noted these themes and benefits amongst participants in United Through Reading’s flagship program of service members recording storytime moments for their children to access while they are gone:?

●?????United Through Reading facilitates feelings of connection between service members and their families during times apart due to military service

●?????Families who used United Through Reading’s services attributed lower reintegration difficulties to their participation, citing on-demand recorded storytime moments of the absent service member as a way to keep the service member present for younger children and part of the family’s reading routine

●?????United Through Reading also helped improve the morale of service members, caregivers, children, and the family unit as a whole, reducing stress for all

●?????United Through Reading storytime recordings overcome many of the challenges and constraints associated with other forms of communication, such as time zone differences, connectivity problems, child interest, blackout dates, and accommodating children’s requests to see their service member at any time of the day

●?????United Through Reading contributes to a love of reading in children who were not already avid readers and emphasizes a love of reading in children by making reading something special

●?????When families talk about United Through Reading, they emphasize the benefits that they experienced, such as increased feelings of connection with their service member, the ease of watching recordings over other forms of communication, and feeling like their service member was still an active part of their lives?

United Through Reading’s responsiveness to those we serve, reflecting the innovation necessary to stem and reverse these concerning NAEP reading score trends amongst military-connected children, is manifested in our recently announced 3-year campaign – Operation Storytime.

After celebrating connecting our 3 millionth military family member through the magic of reading together, United Through Reading’s bold campaign goal is to connect #TheNextMillion through 4 campaign missions, all of which include age-appropriate literacy-enhancing tools for military families that complement our connection and well-being benefits, and reflect the rich diversity of the military community, which reflects our nation.?

We at United Through Reading are proud to serve those who serve and sacrifice so much for our nation, and we’re at the leading edge of reversing these NAEP trends in reading score declines – join our movement at operationstorytime.org.?

#OperationStorytime

#Literacy

#MissionREAD

#MissionRECONNECT

#MissionREADY

#MissionREACH

#IReadwithUTR

#NowMoreThanEver

#NationsReportCard

#UTR4Military

#NoMatterTheDistance

Tim Farrell is United Through Reading's Chief Executive Officer. He served 23+ years in the United States Air Force . More than a decade before Tim became United Through Reading's CEO, he and his family connected through joyful reading, recorded at UTR Story Stations, during Tim's multiple deployments to Iraq during Operations IRAQI FREEDOM and NEW DAWN.