First lady Crissy Haslam returns to West Tennessee to promote reading

DECATURVILLE, Tenn. — First lady Crissy Haslam maked another stop in West Tennessee on Tuesday as part of her Read20 campaign.

“I hope by the end of the year I’ll be able to say every county has heard this message,” Haslam said.

First lady Haslam read to 2nd graders Tuesday morning at Decaturville Elementary School.

“We were really excited to have the first lady to come and read to us today and to promote the Read to be Ready campaign,” Principal Melinda Thompson said.

First lady Haslam is continuing to make her way through the state of Tennessee promoting her Read20 campaign. She’s also encouraging students to continue reading even into the upcoming summer.

“Unfortunately, we are right there, right with the state’s average with our reading scores, so we have been preparing this year to kind of increase our reading scores along with the initiatives along with the state,” Thompson said.

According to the Department of Education, only 43 percent of 3rd graders are reading proficiently. Haslam’s Read20 campaign hopes to drive that number to 75 percent by the year 2025.

“In the summertime, if children aren’t reading, they’ll slide backwards,” Haslam said. “It’s called the ‘summer slide,’ and when they come back to school they’ll be behind where they were when they left school.”

A $1 million grant from Dollar General to the state education department is dedicated to funding summer reading programs.

“They’ll be dividing it up lots of little places all across the state,” Haslam said. “I believe the largest grant may be like $30,000, so hopefully we’ll have lots of new ideas and lots of kids reading across the state this summer.”

Anyone can apply for the grant if they have an idea for a summer reading program. The deadline to apply for the grant is April 22. The application can be found on the Read to be Ready website.