This project will help build home libraries for 1,000 children ages 0-8 living in poverty across the United States, providing diverse books and bilingual materials to help caregivers prepare their children for academic success and beyond.
When children enter school without basic literacy skills, the effects are serious, long-term, and inequitable. Yet less than half of U.S. children who live in poverty enter school with the language and reading skills needed for academic success. Biennial testing through NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) consistently shows that two thirds of U.S. children are unable to read with proficiency by fourth grade when you need to read to learn.
Access to high quality, age-appropriate reading materials in the home and parent engagement programming like Raising a Reader offers can address this opportunity gap. Intervening early and often is key and has a long-term payoff. Entering school kindergarten ready correlates with greater academic achievement throughout a students' school career (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2020).
The project will provide 1,000 families with the tools and support they need to prepare their children for academic success and empower caregivers to be their child's first teacher. Raising a Reader works. 61% of Raising a Reader participants are reading at or above grade level in first grade, compared to 43% of comparison group students.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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