Dear Superintendent:
Spring has officially arrived and the end of the school year will be here before we
know it. When I think about summer, I worry about the literacy skills too many
students lose during their time away from the classroom. Two years ago, the
Department of Public Instruction launched the first-ever statewide Give Five –
Read Five campaign to address this issue.
In 2013, 74 elementary schools collected 123,152 books to send home with
students at the end of the school year to encourage summer reading. Last year, we
more than doubled our success as 150 schools collected 257,334 books. You can
see the 2014 book collection totals by school here.
This year, our goal is for every elementary school in the state to participate and my hope is that we can
collect at least 500,000 books for students to take home and read over summer break. This is an ambitious
goal, but if we work together, we can achieve it.
For the third year in a row, we have placed many resources on the Give Five – Read Five website to help your
class, school or district launch its own campaign. Resources include letters for parents and business and/or
community leaders, as well as a summer reading tips sheet, a Lexile fact sheet, logos and helpful links.
In addition, we have learned many valuable lessons over the past two years of campaigns. I encourage you to
consider the following strategies as you implement your campaign at the local level:
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Partner with local chambers of commerce, churches, local sports teams, small businesses and other
community organizations who can host book collection boxes and/or collection events. Many of these
groups are looking for meaningful service projects, especially projects that will impact the local
community. Last year, for example, one church youth group collected and distributed 27,000 books to
eight elementary schools!
If you are working in a middle or high school, consider helping your school to “adopt” a local elementary
school. Encourage students and parents to collect books for this school as a service project. Some local
high schools have even allowed students to earn one service hour for every five books they bring to
donate to local elementary schools. Starting this year, we plan to offer a prize to the school that collects
the most books for another school. Stay tuned for more details about this special competition.
It is helpful to place book donation boxes in multiple locations through a school or district, not just in the
front office of a school or district office.
Partner with new and used book stores. Over the past two years, many stores have offered discounts or
special deals to customers who purchase books for the Give Five – Read Five campaign. Some used
book stores even offered deals on entire bags of books (20+ books) for $5.
Reach out to your local media partners to see how they can help you spread the word about your
campaign efforts.
OFFICE OF THE STATE SUPERINTENDENT
June St. Clair Atkinson, Ed.D., State Superintendent | June.Atkinson@dpi.nc.gov
6301 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-6301 | (919) 807-3430 | Fax (919) 807-3445
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER
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Send information about the Give Five – Read Five activities that your school or district is planning or
already implementing to sara.clark@dpi.nc.gov. We will feature your efforts on DPI’s webpage and
promote your efforts on Facebook and Twitter.
At the end of your book drive, host book shopping day for teachers and/or students. I have attended a few
of these shopping events and end-of-campaign celebrations and they are wonderful events during which
you can see how grateful and excited teachers and students are about receiving books.
Report the total number of books collected by your schools or districts to sara.clark@dpi.nc.gov by
June 15, 2015. Your report will enter your school into the competition for a school-wide license for
online literacy tools. You also will help to make sure that every single donated book is counted so we can
announce a statewide collection total in early July.
In just a few months, many students will leave school and could be spending their summer weeks in homes with
very few reading resources. A donation of just five books may help one of these students retain the literacy skills
he or she worked so hard to build during the school year. What a significant return on a very minor investment!
Thank you for being a part of North Carolina’s Give Five – Read Five campaign this year. Your hard work and/or
book donations will enable more students to read during their time away from the classroom so that they can begin
a new school year better prepared to learn.
Sincerely,
June St. Clair Atkinson
JSA:SC:mw