Book knowledge: Two non-profit organizations join forces to promote children’s reading skills

The nonprofit BookSmiles gives away thousands of new or used books each year to children who have limited access to reading materials, but a recently announced partnership is likely to give away thousands more.

BookSmiles will now partner with the New Jersey Tutoring Corps (NJTC) – a statewide tutoring program for students in grades 1 through 8 – to provide free books to even more children, according to a press release announcing the joint effort. The agreement also aims to offset the approximately $50,000 the NJTC spends annually on materials and books for its students, allowing more money to go directly to instruction.

The NJTC was created in 2022 by First Lady Tammy Murphy in response to learning gaps exacerbated by COVID, the press release said. According to a 2023 NJ Education Report, the 2022 New Jersey Student Learning Assessments (NJSLA) showed that 64.6% of the state’s students did not meet their grade level expectations in math and 51.1% in English.

“We don’t like to talk about learning loss because that implies that students – and we refer to our students as students – haven’t learned anything, and that’s not true,” said Katherine Bassett, CEO of the state initiative. “They’ve learned a lot. They just haven’t necessarily learned a lot about their academic content. That’s why we refer to them as learning gaps.”

Since NJTC launched its first pilot program in six counties — including Camden — in 2022, the share of students achieving at grade level in the NJSLA has increased by 16% to 40% in math and by 23% to 40% in reading and writing. The nonprofit now has nearly 80 locations in 18 counties and employs about 400 people serving more than 3,600 children this school year alone, about 10,000 total, according to its website.

NJTC’s paid tutors work after school and during the summer in one-on-one sessions and are often integrated into classrooms during the school day. Small group sessions at these facilities last between 30 and 60 minutes.

As for BookSmiles, the pandemic has only accelerated growth, according to the website.

Founder Larry Abrams once stored thousands of titles in his classroom and garage before opening the first BookSmiles book bank in Cherry Hill in 2019. Since then, he has given away about two million titles. The organization – which also benefits children in Philadelphia – now occupies a 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Pennsauken.

According to the press release, Abrams said of his new partnership: “To combat inequality in the state’s education system, we must find ways to work together and scale the clear solutions we have developed at the local level. In the short time they (NJTC) have existed, they have quickly become a powerful and highly effective anchor of change in New Jersey.”

For its part, the NJTC has a strategic plan that calls for “innovative partnerships” with other organizations such as BookSmiles to address what it calls “core learning challenges” in New Jersey.

“The partnership between NJTC and BookSmiles continues our efforts to provide better opportunities for all New Jersey public school students,” noted Bassett. “This new relationship will benefit students who need the support of books at home while dramatically strengthening our organization and infrastructure.”

Does that sound like government speak? Sure. But think of it this way: If we put more books in little hands, we can raise a whole generation of readers.