Southold youth to receive healthy habits packages

Falling literacy skills among students in the post-pandemic world are no secret, as national reports have tracked significant decreases in reading assessments in the past five years.

This holds true in New York, where fourth-grade reading assessments conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2024 revealed an average score of five points less than in 2019. However, the state’s fourth-grade reading was “somewhat better than the nation as a whole,” according to a New York State School Boards Association analysis. 

The issue is something Southold Town’s Spanish-speaking community service worker Sonia Spar took up when she began her position in 2023 and hopes to address through a bilingual early literacy and healthy habits campaign this fall. 

Ms. Spar felt it was important to host a series of meetings with English as a New Language teachers to identify issues students have had in the community. 

“COVID jumped us into technology, and children are using technology for interaction,” Ms. Spar said. “And [at] the moment, that the relationship between letter-sound recognition is being delayed.”

This challenge is something Ms. Spar has partnered with Allied Foundation executive director Heather Edwards to tackle in local elementary schools and Head Start. The team designed a care package for kindergartners and pre-K students throughout town to help them develop healthy habits and improve reading skills at home. 

Packages will include an Etch A Sketch, a plush toy, bilingual Spanish-English or Ukrainian-English word association games, books, toothbrushes, a dry erase schedule sheet to promote healthy habits and more. 

“The books are to reinforce for parents the importance of reading aloud to your child every single day, especially at bedtime, but during the day to really encourage language development,” Ms. Edwards said. 

None of the items requires batteries, Ms. Spar said, so families won’t incur any costs associated with the package. 

The healthy habits schedule sheet includes boxes for brushing teeth, washing faces, healthy choices, word games and reading for 15 minutes. Ms. Spar hopes the schedule will encourage independence and accountability for kids who use it. 

Town Councilwoman Anne Smith, who worked as a teacher and superintendent for East End schools, including Mattituck-Cutchogue Union Free School District, emphasized the importance of exposure to letter-sound recognition and vocabulary at a young age. 

“We know that when that starts, by age 3 or 4, your potential to be at reading level by grade 3 is dramatically improved,” Ms. Smith said. She noted that introducing dual language to students at a young age, when their brains are developing, increases their ability to become fluent in a second language. 

“Many of the schools are already teaching dual language programs starting in kindergarten, so it really fits beautifully into building vocabulary across language,” Ms. Smith said. 

Nonprofit organization Baby2Baby, medical supply distributor Henry Schein and the Junior League of Long Island were some of the organizations who helped fund the initiative. 

Two hundred students will receive the healthy habits packages after they’re assembled later this month, but Ms. Spar said the initiative still needs a bit of help from the community. Local businesses and community organizations that would like to help raise an additional $3,500 to finish gathering materials for the packages can email Ms. Spar at [email protected].