Raising A Reader’s program model is based on 25 years of academic research, and another ten years of program evaluation research, that shows the relationship between a child being read to at home before starting kindergarten, and academic and other success. Skim the list of Independent Evaluations, or review the research highlighted below.
Research on Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty
Double Jeopardy – How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation (Donald J. Hernandez for The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2011). Education researchers have long recognized the importance of mastering reading by the end of third grade. Students who fail to reach this critical milestone often falter in the later grades and often drop out before earning a high school diploma. Now researchers have confirmed this link in the first national study to calculate high school graduation rates for children at different reading skill levels and with different poverty rates.
Achievement Gap
Whither Opportunity - The gap between the incomes of the nation’s rich and poor families has grown enormously in the last three decades.Simultaneously, the gap between the educational attainments of children raised in rich and poor families has also grown markedly during this period.
Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children – Studies have found that by age 3, the observed cumulative vocabulary for children in professional families was 1,116, for working class families it was about 740, and for welfare families it was 525.
The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap – By age three, children from privileged families have heard 30 million more words than children from poor families. By kindergarten the gap is even greater. The consequences are catastrophic.
Early Brain Development
Brain Architecture - (Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University). Early experiences affect the development of brain architecture, which provides the foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health.
Family Involvement Makes a Difference, Harvard Family Research Project- Parents who maintain direct and regular contact with the early educational setting and experience fewer barriers to involvement have children who demonstrate positive engagement with peers, adults, and learning. In addition, family involvement in early childhood sets the stage for involvement in future school settings.
One Step at a Time: The Effects of an Early Literacy Text Messaging Program for Parents of Preschoolers - Substantial systematic differences exist in children’s home learning experiences. The few existing parenting programs that have shown promise often are not widely accessible, either due to the demands they place on parents’ time and effort or cost. This study evaluates the effects of READY4K!, a text messaging program for parents of preschoolers designed to help them support their children’s literacy development.
Research-Based Guidelines for Screen Use for Children Under 3 Years Old - This free downloadable article via ZERO TO THREE helps set the record straight about children and screen time with the help of leading researchers in the field of children and media.
Interactive Book Sharing
How Reading Books Fosters Language Development around the World - Research on child development has established beyond doubt the fact that the years between birth and age three are critical for children’s long-term language, cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal development. To an extent, the power of these years springs from the fact that the brain is maturing rapidly and is sensitive to environmental stimulation or lack thereof. Also, this is the time when linguistic, cognitive, affective, and regulatory systems are developing and becoming interdependent. At this critical juncture, book reading has special power to have enduring impact on parents’ patterns of interpersonal interaction with their children in a way that has lasting consequences for them. As parents read with children, they have the opportunity for frequent, sensitively tuned, language-rich interactions that draw children into conversations about books, the world, language and concepts.