Take-Home Books > How Hampton City Schools Built a Community-Wide Culture of Literacy
Literacy Under One Umbrella
How Hampton City Schools Built a Community-Wide Culture of Literacy
By Scholastic Education Editors
Grades PreK–12
March 10, 2026
March 3, 2026
Hampton City Schools set a bold goal: Ensure that every student reads on grade level by the end of third grade. To get there, the district built the Umbrella Framework, a comprehensive, sustainable literacy strategy supported by access, community partnership, and celebration.
What began as a summer book pilot in a few Title I schools has grown into a district-wide, year-round initiative that increased reading proficiency and reshaped how students, staff, and families engaged with literacy.
Just as an umbrella needs multiple ribs to stay upright, Hampton City Schools’ literacy success depended on access to books, community partnerships, digital tools, schoolwide celebration, and scalability.
The Umbrella Framework in Action
1. Year-Round Book Access
The first major initiative was providing students with Summer Take-Home Books. As the work grew, so did the district’s offerings:
- Kindergarten registration books
- Student choice in take-home selection
- Spring and winter break distributions
- Hampton Reads One Book, a shared community-wide reading experience supported by classroom activities and district-wide events
- Digital access to books and embedded assessments with Scholastic Literacy Pro
2. Family and Community Partnerships
Hampton mobilized its broader community to extend literacy beyond the classroom:
- Public libraries offered incentives and programming.
- Healthy Families and Parks & Recreation integrated literacy into out-of-school programming.
- The local police department kept copies of the Hampton Reads One Book title in its vehicles and discussed stories with families.
- Local businesses and banks sponsored events and offered promotional space.
Together, these partnerships strengthened literacy as a shared community value.
3. Celebration as a Literacy Strategy
District and school leaders made reading something to celebrate through:
- Recorded encouragement calls from principals and students
- Public recognition, from school board shoutouts to in-school rewards
- Community-wide read-aloud videos and kickoff events
A Model That Any District Can Build
What made Hampton’s approach work wasn’t a single product or program; it was a mindset shift that can be adopted by any district.
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