A local nonprofit, Books for Keeps provides 12 books to low-income students in elementary schools where 90 percent or more of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches. The books are distributed in an effort to help prevent “summer slide,” which is both a summertime lapse in reading and a tendency for students to forget some of what they learned during the previous school year. “We’re trying to help these students, who have so much potential, be prepared for middle school by being able to read on grade level,” Executive Director and UGA School of Public and International Affairs alumna Leslie Hale said. “Research shows that children from low-income families loose ground over the summer and return in the fall with less knowledge than they had in the spring.

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