Literacy Scores Rise Over DREAM Summer

Alex Bregy and Bella Dwyer with Bella's award

Not long after the start of the DREAM summer reading program, Alex Bregy realized he had some ‘reluctant readers’ among his mentees. As an experienced mentor coordinator, he knew a personalized approach was needed to spark an interest in reading—and maybe even turn them into book lovers.

Bregy started with Bella Dwyer, who told him that she disliked reading and did not want to participate in summer reading activities, by offering her a deal: read the first three pages of the book Frizzy by Claribel Ortega, and if she didn’t like it, she could do a writing activity instead.

“After the first three pages, she was into it and didn't want to stop reading,” said Bregy, a summer manager at Willowbrook Apartments in Bennington, Vermont. Further inspired by a trip to the McCullough Free Library where mentees were enrolled in a reading challenge, Dwyer started reading for the recommended hour every day and also later at home.

“She would come in and report that she'd read an hour or more the night before so I could add it to her reading log,” said Bregy, a junior at Bennington College studying creative writing and film. By the end of the summer, Dwyer was awarded a ‘reading basket’ award with a 3D-printed dragon and tickets for a movie night with her family for having read over 1,000 minutes.

“I was really happy because I've never won anything in my life!" Dwyer told Bregy, who said the DREAM team and campers were very excited that she won.  

Reading Scores Improving Across DREAM

Dwyer’s experience is one of many DREAM success stories over the summer of 2025. Reading scores improved at varying levels across programs in Vermont, Boston and Philadelphia. In some areas of Vermont, the Berkshires, and Upper Valley, students improved their reading levels to an average of 153 words per minute. Mentees in Boston also showed strong reading fluency growth while other programs improved at varying levels. 

Working to increase reading levels after the nationwide decline during the pandemic was a goal of DREAM and co-founder Mike Foote. Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—known as the Nation's Report Card—shows reading declines for 4th and 8th graders with some schoolchildren still almost a full year behind typical pre-Covid reading levels.

In response, DREAM bolstered its summer reading programming across each region and added more summer mentors. It also hired Paul Neely as its associate director of board and data quality to implement testing and track scores using DIBELS ® (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills)—a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of literacy skills—including the following testing schedule:

Reading Fluency & Comprehension Testing Guide

Week	Purpose	All Sites (exc. Boston)	Boston
1	Pre-Test	June 20–26, 2025	June 27–July 3, 2025
4	Mid-Test	July 11–17, 2025	July 18–24, 2025
8	Post-Test (PRE)*	August 1–8, 2025	August 8–14, 2025

Reading literacy is one of four key areas that Summer DREAM Enrichment employs to support its overall mission of closing the opportunity gap for children and teens through deep community collaboration and sustained mentoring relationships. These include: building competent readers, fostering problem solvers, inspiring artists and creators, and boosting healthy minds and bodies.

“DREAM is known for its outdoor activities and other play-based forms of experimental learning,” said Foote, who co-founded DREAM in 1999. “We view reading as an important aspect of our overall programming, which is a component of our program design intended to combat the summer developmental slide.”

A Personalized Approach to Learning 

DREAM has found success in finding and encouraging what motivates and inspires each mentee while working within a larger educational framework. Bregy, for example, also worked with one of Dwyer’s best friends, Amanda Lessman, who didn’t consider herself a good reader and dreaded testing.

Bregy started by encouraging Lessman to read a graphic novel, The Baby-Sitters Club, that she was bringing to programming. Once she finished the series, Bregy encouraged her to read more graphic novels at the library like Frizzy with the goal of having her eventually read more traditional prose in chapter books.

"We are strong believers in graphic novels as real books, so we worked over the summer to break down the stigma they often hold, which I feel helped Amanda grow more confident in her reading generally,” said Bregy. “Amanda's consistency is to be congratulated. She worked at reading, day in and day out at camp, with great patience and persistence. That was a major key to her growth and we are so proud of her.”

By the end of the summer, Neely reported that Lessman improved her reading score from 27 to 69 words per minute (WCPM) over 45 days for a +42 improvement. “When I told Amanda about her reading improvement this summer and that she increased 40 more words per minute, she said ‘YAY!’ and cheered.”

Mentors like Bregy continue to work with students throughout the school year in Village Mentoring programs that match college students with elementary and middle school children. The development of these meaningful relationships resulted in improved academic and personal outcomes, according to a 2022-2023 impact evaluation study of the DREAM Program by the Search Institute. 

Interested in how DREAM's closing the opportunity gap?

Learn More about DREAM's Impact