How a St. Louis nonprofit is trying to boost Black children’s literacy rates through representation 51%
By Andrea Y. Henderson0%
4/23/2026, 10:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Hasty Generalization, and Framing Effect, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 15.7% saturation with 238 hits. Analysis detected 1,762 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,517 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 50.9% and a BS Rank of 51% (8,246 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 51.00% of the article peer group.
In Mrs.
Murphy’s second grade class at Jefferson Elementary, about 15 students are practicing phonics out loud.
They are sounding out the letters that spell “limelight,” and in walks a guest they have been waiting for.
In unison, they say, “Good Morning, Mr.
Keyon.”
Keyon Watkins reads books to first and second graders at the Carr Square neighborhood school at 9:30 a.m. every Thursday.
It is part of the Page Turner Program, organized by his literary organization, Black Men Read.
Group volunteers began reading aloud to students at Hickey, Ashland and Jefferson Elementary Schools last year, but after the May 2025 tornado, the program only continued at Jefferson.
To get ready to read, Watkins asks the students to stand at the front of the class on a blue rug with colorful button shapes and wiggle their bodies until their nerves settle, shaking out any anxiety around reading.
Then Watkins said, “R”; the children screamed back, “Read!”
He said “E,” and immediately the students shouted, “Explore!”
The letter “A” came next, and some children jumped up saying, “Achieve!”
Watkins said “D,” and the students said loudly, “Dream!”
Watkins asked the children, “What word does that spell?”
and they all yelled, “Read!”
“What it's really about is just the access, and when kids have access to books, that's powerful,” Watkins said.
“We introduce them to the books, so the goal is for them to take the books home, interact with their parents, do activities like book reports, go to the library and check out books.”
The students quickly settle down to listen to Watkins read a couple of classroom favorites, “Lil’ Drippy’s Nacho Adventure” by Cohl McTyer and “My Chinatown” by Cam Mak.
They flipped the pages and followed along while Watkins animatedly read the words on the pages.
Each child takes home a copy of every book Watkins reads to the class to add to their home library.
This effort is through the St.
Louis Education Fund, and it partners with other literacy organizations in the area.
So far, the children at Jefferson Elementary have at least a dozen books at home through the program.
“The country is facing a literacy crisis, and [it’s affecting] mainly our Black and brown children,” Watkins said.
“It’s just important that we change the culture [and] that they see Black men in these spaces … encouraging them to read.
And so representation is a big part of this.”
Watkins started Black Men Read as a book club in 2021 to hold space for men who wanted to be in community during the pandemic’s isolation period.
It later blossomed into a 501(c)3 charitable organization after his brother was murdered in 2022.
The literacy organization is also a way to pay tribute to his brother, who was illiterate.
“He was a busboy who worked at Houlihan’s, and every time he could have been promoted to become a cook, he'd act out, and that's because he didn't know how to read the recipes,” Watkins said.
“Understanding that literacy really isn't just about reading the words on a piece of paper, but it's about identity.”
Black Men Read’s mission is to eliminate students being pushed out of schools for discipline issues and into juvenile justice systems or prisons, which disproportionately affects Black students.
Being behind reading level in the third grade can change students' entire academic career, especially for Black and brown children, Watkins said.
“Most of the time, teachers tend to focus on the behavior issues [at that time] when it comes to Black boys, and so they're not able to read, not able to engage or pay attention,” he said.
“Typically, they tend to act up out of frustration, because they're not receiving the help that they need, and they're not being seen.”
A culture of literacy
While Watkins read to the second grade students, they asked questions about the characters, what certain words meant and what different cultures were like.
They were engaged, something Watkins said he and the other nearly two dozen Black Men Read volunteers work hard to achieve in classrooms.
The volunteers read and tutor students and participate in literacy programming to help children, especially Black children, see people who look like them reading.
Children must see themselves as readers first, and once their identity changes, then they become readers, Watkins said.
Watkins attended schools in the Ladue School District as part of the St.
Louis area’s school desegregation program.
He recalls having mostly white women as teachers.
He said some teachers suggested he needed Ritalin because they thought he had an attention disorder.
His mother advocated for an IQ test instead, and he scored highly.
This is why he encourages more Black men to show up at schools and read to children to help them focus on literacy and build their confidence.
Across the nation, about 35% of all children are reading proficiently by the fourth grade, compared to only 17% of Black children.
In St.
Louis, it’s a bit lower: About 14% of Black children are proficient in reading, compared to over 20% of all children.
This literacy crisis prompted the St.
Louis chapter of the NAACP to file a civil rights complaint with the Department of Education in 2024.
However, the federal government dismissed the case last year, saying it lacked jurisdiction and sufficient data to warrant an investigation.
Area organizations and local public schools are trying to raise the region’s literacy rates through reading activities and summer programs.
Watkins said his literacy organization is also here to fill in the gaps, but it takes a community.
Representation
That community includes other Black men who volunteer to read with the group at schools, events and libraries, including local children’s author and entrepreneur Stanley K.
Harvey.
He has been reading his two paperback books, “I Love Myself!”
and “Add and Count With Me,” to children across the region for about five years, including those at Jefferson Elementary.
Working with children has taught him many lessons about entrepreneurship and how to make reading fun for all ages.
Many Black children process the concept of reading much differently than other students, Harvey said.
“I realized a lot of Black children that I work with, they learn off rhythm,” he said.
“When I come [to the schools] with something that’s musical, or something they catch it fast.”
Harvey picked up on this immediately and reads his books in a singsongy manner or turns some of his words into rap lyrics, so the students can easily catch on and understand the story’s premise.
“The power of the right voice and the right person could impact you forever, that's why I think, as a Black man showing up, it's as important,” he said.
Harvey grew up in the Penrose neighborhood, and he remembers what it’s like to not have many Black men encouraging students to read.
Fewer than 2% of U.S. teachers are Black men.
Harvey said he wasn’t a confident reader in school, and having teachers or volunteer readers who looked like him would have helped.
“I was shy, I was nervous, I wasn’t confident, and I didn’t feel like I was brave enough [to read out loud],” Harvey said.
“As I deal with them [students] within time, within months … I see them step up, more brave, even if they stutter and the class laughs, they are still going.”
That motivates Harvey to continue reading to the children at Jefferson and other schools.
He wants every child to become a confident reader.
He said men carry a strong presence in schools, and Black Men Read is helping close that literacy gap through representation.
Author Seth Miller, a former Air Force member originally from Detroit but residing in the Metro East, published two books and two journals to help Black youths develop a healthy mindset about themselves and their lives.
Miller said he has noticed that Black children and youth have certain gifts, and they can tap into those qualities by being bold readers, which Black Men Read helps them do.
“I believe it's important for the youth to see someone doing something that is positive — contrary to the stereotypes of what's on social media or even out in the news — by highlighting the interest of literacy and education,” Miller said.
At Jefferson Elementary, Black Men Read hosts tutoring twice a week for one hour.
Watkins said about 80% of the students have seen their reading levels increase by at least three grade levels.
But the work does not stop there; his goal is to get more volunteers to read to children and put more books in children’s hands, which he hopes will also increase literacy rates among Black children in St.
Louis.
“It's about confidence, more importantly, opportunity,” Watkins said.
“The babies seeing us in these spaces lets them know that they should read [because] it can change their life.”
Related Event
What: Author Showcase Black Men Read: Voices in Tandem
When: April 25, 2026
Time: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where: Schlafly Library
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