First Lady Crissy Haslam Encourages Reading with Children at Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art

NASHVILLE – First Lady Crissy Haslam hosted a Read20 Family Book Club event today at Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art in Nashville. Mrs. Haslam read the June Book of the Month, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, to approximately 35 children participating in Cheekwood’s Summer Camps in the Howe Garden.

This month marks the first anniversary of the Read20 Family Book Club. Since the program’s launch in June 2012, Mrs. Haslam has made visits to minor league baseball games, military bases, elementary schools, libraries, museums and community centers throughout the state to encourage daily reading and program participation with families.  

“Families are faced with many competing priorities, but reading with children can be the most important activity to promote success in school and in life,” said Mrs. Haslam. “We hope that the Read20 Family Book Club can continue to help support and encourage Tennessee families as they engage in daily reading.”

After reading the June Book of the Month at Cheekwood, Mrs. Haslam encouraged children to stay committed to daily reading this summer as a means to combat summer learning loss. Research shows that students often score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer break than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer. Cheekwood’s summer camps feature numerous arts as well as literary-focused programs and materials and will be attended by more than 1,200 children this year.

“Summer can be a critical time for education, and we want Tennessee students to retain and improve the literacy skills that they learned during the school year,” said Mrs. Haslam. “Daily reading can keep children engaged in learning while they spend time outside of the classroom.”

For more information about the Read20 Family Book Club visit www.tn.gov/read20, www.facebook.com/CrissyHaslam, follow @Read20TN on Twitter, or go to your local public library.