Books For At-Risk Children with Raising A Reader

Children are back at school! Thanks to your support, Raising A Reader helped ease that transition for 150,000 children across the
nation in 36 states! We are now reaching 15% more children and families across the US. All year long, children and caring adults read together with support from Raising A Reader. Our evidence-based programs help build healthy brains, strengthen relationships, and build the literacy skills to be ready for kindergarten and reading by 3rd grade. Building on the strength of our Classic Red Book Bag Rotation model, we rolled out two new programs to help families build home libraries and establish at home reading routines, Super Summer Learning Adventures and Family Shared Reading. These programs helped families build at home libraries, activate summer learning and reinforce shared literacy routines. Along with carefully selected bilingual books, we included a bilingual guide in English and Spanish with weekly exercises, activities and tips for reading with children ages 0-8. We are excited to share that Family Shared Reading was just selected as a 2021 Library of Congress Best Practice Honoree. 

Here are some of the testimonials we have received this year:

“My husband passed away due to COVID and having the constant routine of opening the red book bags to escape into books offered my daughter and I a way to process and heal emotions."

"We look forward to the RAR book bags and stories, as reading the books with my children has helped with some of the deep emotions, we as a family are feeling now."

"Reading gives us a chance to end the day in an emotionally safe way, no matter what is going on in our world."

Across the nation, over 80% of children from low-income backgrounds are not ready for kindergarten, one of the greatest
predictors of later school success. Over 80% of the families we serve are struggling to make ends meet and your support really
makes a difference. Raising A Reader takes a village!

Throughout the pandemic we worked closely with our 285 Affiliates to safely implement RAR programs at nearly 3,000 local
sites and developed 11 new Affiliate partnerships including the addition of Tribal Child Care. We continue to support them in
helping their families in crisis during this difficult time, through monthly virtual Town Halls and our new social emotional
curriculum for having age-appropriate conversations about sensitive topics.

We know that children across the nation do not have a level playing field. To that end, we have activated a Race Equity Agenda that provides us with a roadmap to ensure children of all races, socioeconomic backgrounds, and geographies have access to Raising A
Reader. We recently conducted an audit of our book collection of over 3,000 titles with selections in 13 languages. We are making sure that our titles reflect the lived experiences of the populations we serve.

Your support has never been more critical if we are to stem learning loss and reach children who need it most with a program that gets results, is easy to implement and easy to scale.

We thank you for your past support. With your continued support, Raising A Reader again this year and help us meet our goal of reaching 200,000 vulnerable children and families by 2022.

Links:

• Link to PDF of Raising A Reader's Fall Update 2021
• Raising A Reader Partners to Promote Spanish Language Books

December is here and book bags full of high-quality children’s literature are going home with families across the country.

Beyond simply creating shared reading habits, Raising A Reader has the ability to transform lives. A father recently was introduced to Raising A Reader after reluctantly joining a “Parenting Program” led by a family agency in Northern California. By the third week in the program, he was beginning to read with his seven-year-old child. The father shared with the group that his daughter was so surprised by the actions that she was afraid at first! While he and his daughter began to turn book-sharing into routine, he realized that he had never had the experience of reading with his own father and as a result did not know the importance of the practice. Now, father and child are both building a relationship with each other and the foundation for his daughter's future success.  

Over the 2013-2014 school year, Raising A Reader will support thousands of families in developing reading routines, build early literacy skills by sharing award-winning books, and sustain home literacy practices through libraries by arming families with a love of reading and a library card. Raising A Reader makes it easy for families to share the love of reading with their children. We will continue to share the stories we hear from programs across the country where we are making an impact. 

As you may or may not know, a generous donor has creating a matching pledge for 2013! All gifts to support Raising A Reader will be matched at 100%! That means that a $35 pledge to support one existing child will turn into TWO children served through Raising A Reader.

Thank you for your ongoing generosity and all you do to support children and families across the country. We couldn’t do it without you!