OPENING THE READ ING D OOR
Literacy is the door to every child's future and almost everyone has a part in helping children walk through that door.
The Problem
Simply put, the problem is that 1 in 4 children enter fourth grade reading at a kindergarten, first or second grade level. The consequences of this problem are predictable. When youngsters face fourth grade math and science books with first and second grade reading skills, they learn less than half of the material. They are slowly and relentlessly left further behind. They feel bad about their academic failure. They feel worse about themselves. We, as responsible adults also feel bad, but the problem remains. The literacy door is still closed for these young students.
In middle school, 1 in 4 students continue in a pattern of persistently low academic achievement and lowered self-esteem.
By high school, these students are as much as 5 years behind the top quartile in their class. Schools no longer give credit for classes which students fail and they start dropping out. Almost all of us know someone like this—a child struggling in school or a neighborhood kid who is giving up. This is the problem and it affects 25% of our students in virtually every public school district.
But the problem continues after high school for those who read poorly. These former students still haven't mastered the single most important tool required for economic self-sufficiency in an information age.
As a result, 78% of those in our juvenile court systems dropped out of high school; 75% of unemployed adults have significant reading problems; and 43% of those with the lowest literacy skills live in poverty.
The Solution
The National Children's Reading Foundation believes that a close partnership of accountable parents, accountable schools and community Reading Foundations can assure that each child acquires the skills and experiences necessary to read early and well.
Parents are a child's first and most significant teacher. The home, as a child's first classroom needs to provide at least 600 hours of pre-literacy experience to each child from birth to kindergarten. Proper parenting includes reading 20 minutes per day with your child from birth, an activity crucial for visual, auditory, and emotional stimuli for early brain development.
This site suggests age-appropriate activities and books for your child. It emphasizes selecting proper daycare and preschool providers to supplement your parenting. It supports you in preparing your child to enter school ready to learn, and especially, ready to read.
Our schools must teach each student to read at or above grade level by third grade. Superintendents and school board members are in a unique position to create the expectation, standards, reports and accountability systems to assure that students read on grade level by third grade.
Elementary principals are responsible for the team of kindergarten, first, second, and third grade teachers who deliver reading instruction to students. These students often have huge disparities in their prior language and literacy training. Some kindergartners begin school with as few as thirty hours of pre-literacy experience or can barely speak while others come with over a thousand hours of training and already read.
Kindergarten through third-grade teachers need an extended repertoire of skills, knowledge, diagnostics and interventions to assure that children, from such diverse backgrounds, read at or above grade level. Currently, of children who do not read at grade level by third grade, 74% never catch up.
Legislators have a key role in supporting elementary reading accountability statewide. They are also leaders in advancing early learning and family education.
And finally, local Reading Foundation chapters support both the parents and school districts. Sharing marketing resources and parent outreach programs, they create a local culture where parents are encouraged to raise a reader by reading to their child 20 minutes a day from birth. Reading Foundations facilitate everyone in the community to fulfill an important role—from donating books to reading aloud at community events. They mobilize natural allies like pediatricians, faith –based groups, and newspaper publishers (who lose approximately $38,000 in advertising revenue over the lifetime of each student in the community who enters fourth grade reading at a first and second grade level.)
Accountable parents, accountable schools, and an involved community. This is how we define the solution.
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