Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Cincy Reads topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Cincinnati Children’s literacy manager highlights Cincy Reads growth, seeks modest website funding
Summary
Christy High, literacy program manager at Cincinnati Children’s, told the Youth and Human Services Committee that the citywide Cincy Reads challenge increased participation to roughly 1,900 and exceeded its 513,000‑minute goal; organizers said modest funding is needed to build a sustaining website and expand year‑round engagement.
Christy High, literacy program manager at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, told the Cincinnati City Council’s Youth and Human Services Committee that the city’s Cincy Reads reading challenge has expanded and organizers want modest funding to build a website to sustain the effort.
High said the March challenge — which she described as a citywide movement that brings together schools, libraries, health‑care providers and community organizations — uses the public library’s tracking app and paper logs to collect reading minutes and encourage families to build routines. “Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed and literacy is where it begins,” High said, stressing the program’s early‑literacy focus.
Why it matters: Committee members framed the program as an early‑intervention effort. Committee leaders noted that reading proficiency in early grades is strongly linked to later academic outcomes and that community partnerships can scale outreach.
High reported that organizers exceeded the stated goal of 513,000 reading minutes and that participation grew to about 1,900 people this year, up from last year’s figures. The transcript contains a partially garbled total for minutes read; the committee and presenter emphasized the participant increase and the exceeded goal rather than a single verified minute total.
Committee members asked about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which High identified as a complementary program that mails a free book monthly to children from birth to age 5. “Kids birth to 5 years old can receive a free book in the mail each month,” High said; she said Hamilton County has about 32,000 enrolled children (about 62 percent of those eligible), which she presented as a strong local enrollment rate.
High described operational details including a practice at Cincinnati Children’s to retrieve returned Imagination Library books from the post office, remove addresses and redistribute the books through community events and volunteers in coordination with partners such as the Queen City Book Bank.
High also described prize visits to winning schools and said the top schools — named in the presentation as Sailor Elementary School, a school listed in the transcript as “Idea” in Valley View, and Wynton Hills Academy — will receive author visits where organizers will present prizes and read to students.
The chair and vice mayor praised the program’s volunteers and sponsors and encouraged continued partnership with Cincinnati Public Schools. High said the challenge so far has been delivered without dedicated funding and requested modest resources to build a Cincy Reads website and expand outreach beyond the annual March challenge.
The committee filed the presentation and moved on to other agenda items. The presentation materials will be shared with the CPS school board, the chair said.
