Making the Shift to Summer Learning: Are We Reaching Everyone?

Flashback to August 2012: the Children’s Services team at the Chicago Public Library (CPL) was running a successful summer reading program that was humming along across the Windy City. After years of a structure in which children read and reported on either twenty-five picture books or ten chapter books depending on their age and reading level, my team and I decided to conduct some focus groups of children and parents to find out if our program was still meeting needs. Frankly, I assumed we were.