United Way Grant Helps Fight 'Summer Slide'

The School year is just under a month away and the YMCA of Western Monmouth County recently announced a grant that will help young students around the area improve their reading abilities.

Seven programs, including the local YMCA received a grant from the United Way of Monmouth County as part of its Community Impact agenda. According to a press release the $22,400 grant will help bridge the achievement gap in the county by improving reading literacy while working with the Freehold Borough Public Schools.

The grant helped fund special programs that were held during the YMCA Summer Borough Recreation Program which started on June 24 and ends on Friday. Part of the program included combining arts, music, physical activity, outside play and literacy and reading activities for Borough students through the third grade.

Cynthia Joy, who serves as President and CEO of the YMCA of Western Monmouth County said the grant would go a long way in helping the local students, calling it a “wonderful collaboration and much needed program.” She added, “This grant enables the Y to ensure that the children of Freehold Borough are reading and succeeding by the end of third grade.”

The press release said that children who are not reading at grade level by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school. The United Way of Monmouth County took that a step further, determining that 62.4 percent of fourth grade students in the lowest socioeconomic status school districts in the county are below reading level. That is a stark contrast to 20.5 percent in the highest socioeconomic districts.

Known as the “summer slide,” the press release said the break in classroom time accounts for as much as 85 percent of the reading achievement gap between the lower and middle and upper income students.