“Age four is so old when it comes to brain development…you’ve lost four years of very important development. That’s why it’s also crucial to work with the adults who are the important influences on these children’s lives.”

-Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University

Parent engagement is a fundamental component of the Raising A Reader program. We believe that the family is the strongest element in shaping the lives of children – it’s the most powerful support network there is, and it’s where the cycle of learning begins. But many parents are not aware of the importance of the first five years of life to future academic success, nor are they aware of how they can impact the actual architecture of their children’s rapidly developing brains.

This is where we come in. Reading aloud is the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading, and helping children prepare for the challenge before they enter school is better than helping them catch up later. Literacy begins at birth. By the time a child is three years old, her brain is 80% the size it will be as an adult; and if that three year-old child is from a low-income family, she has already heard 30 million fewer words than her upper-income peers. And so it begins – the academic achievement gap is evident well before this child even enters school.

Raising A Reader works closely with the families of young children from birth through age six to help them develop, practice, and maintain the habit of shared reading in the home. Our goal at Raising A Reader is to flood high need communities with our signature red book bags and parent workshops in order to break the ongoing cycle of low literacy in families. And our strategy is working. Families who participate in our programs are 26% more likely to read three or more times per week with their children. But another benefit of our program is that by providing these tools to families who would not otherwise have access to them, Raising A Reader empowers parents with new ways to nurture their young children. The benefit of shared reading to the parent/child bonding experience cannot be overstated. There is nothing that compares with the closeness and connection of story time… and the payoff in brain development is unparalleled.