Usha Vance launches summer reading challenge website with prizes from Walmart, Crayola

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Second lady Usha Vance on Wednesday launched her summer reading challenge‘s prize website, where children can choose rewards after submitting their reading logs.

“The Second Lady’s Summer Reading Challenge seeks to combat summer learning declines and encourage childhood literacy through friendly competition and rewards,” the second lady wrote in her announcement.

Any child between kindergarten and eighth grade is eligible to enter the competition, where students will read 12 books, log their progress and write reflections. Submissions are due September 4.

This is the initiative’s second summer, and last year, over 20,000 students took part. The second lady stated in her announcement that this year’s participation has already tripled.

Prizes include Walmart and Dairy Queen gift cards, tickets to the National Children’s Museum, Crayola markers and patches and stickers from NASA and Freedom 250.

Vance has made childhood education, particularly literacy rates, central to her advocacy as second lady. Her podcast “Storytime with the Second Lady” is “designed to inspire a lifelong love of reading,” and earlier this month, President Trump joined Vance on the podcast for an Independence Day episode.

The summer reading contest comes amid growing concerns in recent years about a decrease in reading among children.

“Literacy levels decline over summer break, worsening the 2024 reading proficiency levels by 31% for fourth graders and 30% for eighth graders,” the second lady acknowledged in the announcement.

New research from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that “the percentage of 9-year-olds who reported reading for fun almost every day” has fallen by 16 percent since 1984. For 13-year-olds, the drop in percentage was 21 percent.

This declining interest is especially alarming given the connection between reading for fun and higher test scores, according to the NAEP. Many are pointing to an increase in screen time among children as a reason for lower test scores.

“Gen-Z is the first generation in modern history to underperform us on basically every cognitive measure we have,” said neuroscientist and former teacher Jared Cooney Horvath during his testimony before the Senate in January. Horvath’s recent book, “The Digital Delusion,” is critical of screen use in classrooms and has become popular among parents and educators.

“Once countries adopt technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly,” he later stated.

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