Reading to Kids is a charitable organization that sponsors monthly reading clubs at inner-city elementary schools with low literacy rates in Los Angeles, California, United States. It provides books and volunteers who read to the children. After each reading club, the books are donated to the schools' libraries, and each child receives a reading-related prize for attending. Reading to Kids also provides guidance for parents for encouraging their participating children to read more at home. [1]
The first reading clubs were offered in May 1999 at Gratts Elementary, a primary school in Los Angeles's Westlake neighborhood. At the club, initially known as the Gratts Reading Club, eight volunteers read to twenty children. The club's popularity grew, and later that year its organizers created Reading to Kids. [2]
According to the organization's website, current volunteer attendance as of March, 2023 averages 287 per month prior to the pandemic, 150 per month during the pandemic. Student participation at eight local schools reached an average of 554 prior to the pandemic, 280 children on average during the pandemic.
Reading to Kids hosts monthly reading clubs at eight Los Angeles area elementary schools. Pairs of volunteers read aloud to small groups of elementary school children, who range in grade level from kindergarten to fifth grade. The children are grouped according to grade level, and grade-level-appropriate books are selected each month by school faculty.
Reading to Kids' stated goal is, in part, to "help these children associate reading with pleasure and to promote the value of education and literacy." To that end, 30 to 45 minutes of each session are reserved for a craft project, during which the students and volunteers create art related to the day's book. Often the clubs are themed; these themes extend from the choice of books for the different grade levels to the craft projects undertaken by the children. [3]
First-time volunteers typically participate in brief training sessions, during which program organizers review the clubs' rules and guidelines, and communicate other information about the roles of the volunteers and the activities planned for the day.
At the end of each session, volunteers give each child a book to take home.
Reading to Kids also strives to develop the library resources of participating schools through book donations. The books purchased or donated for use at the reading clubs are later donated to school libraries.
Additionally, at the conclusion of each reading club the children are given free books. Reading to Kids notes that "60% percent of low-income homes do not have age-appropriate reading materials for children.". [4]
Parents are invited to attend parent training workshops that run contemporaneously with the reading clubs. Teachers provide training to parents on how to continue the benefits of the reading club by reading to their children at home. [5]
The organization receives support from various groups, including alumni groups, student organizations, public and private companies, and other charitable foundations. [6]
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, humans in literate societies have sets of practices for producing and consuming writing, and they also have beliefs about these practices. Reading, in this view, is always reading something for some purpose; writing is always writing something for someone for some particular ends. Beliefs about reading and writing and its value for society and for the individual always influence the ways literacy is taught, learned, and practiced over the lifespan.
Phonics is a method for teaching people how to read and write an alphabetic language. It is done by demonstrating the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters or groups of letters (graphemes) or syllables of the written language. In English, this is also known as the alphabetic principle or the alphabetic code.
Readability is the ease with which a reader can understand a written text. In natural language, the readability of text depends on its content and its presentation. Researchers have used various factors to measure readability, such as:
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF) is the oldest and largest non-profit children's literacy organization in the United States. RIF provides books and reading resources to children nationwide with supporting literacy resources for educators, families, and community volunteers.
The IEA's Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international study of reading (comprehension) achievement in fourth graders. It has been conducted every five years since 2001 by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). It is designed to measure children's reading literacy achievement, to provide a baseline for future studies of trends in achievement, and to gather information about children's home and school experiences in learning to read.
Adolescent literacy refers to the ability of adolescents to read and write. Adolescence is a period of rapid psychological and neurological development, during which children develop morally, cognitively, and socially. All of these three types of development have influence—to varying degrees—on the development of literacy skills.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family's economic access to resources and social position in relation to others. When analyzing a family's SES, the household income, earners' education, and occupation are examined, as well as combined income, whereas for an individual's SES only their own attributes are assessed. Recently, research has revealed a lesser recognized attribute of SES as perceived financial stress, as it defines the "balance between income and necessary expenses". Perceived financial stress can be tested by deciphering whether a person at the end of each month has more than enough, just enough, or not enough money or resources. However, SES is more commonly used to depict an economic difference in society as a whole.
After-school activities, also known as after-school programs or after-school care, started in the early 1900s mainly just as supervision of students after the final school bell. Today, after-school programs do much more. There is a focus on helping students with school work but can be beneficial to students in other ways. An after-school program, today, will not limit its focus on academics but with a holistic sense of helping the student population. An after-school activity is any organized program that youth or adult learner voluntary can participate in outside of the traditional school day. Some programs are run by a primary or secondary school, while others are run by externally funded non-profit or commercial organizations. After-school youth programs can occur inside a school building or elsewhere in the community, for instance at a community center, church, library, or park. After-school activities are a cornerstone of concerted cultivation, which is a style of parenting that emphasizes children gaining leadership experience and social skills through participating in organized activities. Such children are believed by proponents to be more successful in later life, while others consider too many activities to indicate overparenting. While some research has shown that structured after-school programs can lead to better test scores, improved homework completion, and higher grades, further research has questioned the effectiveness of after-school programs at improving youth outcomes such as externalizing behavior and school attendance. Additionally, certain activities or programs have made strides in closing the achievement gap, or the gap in academic performance between white students and students of color as measured by standardized tests. Though the existence of after-school activities is relatively universal, different countries implement after-school activities differently, causing after-school activities to vary on a global scale.
Literacy in the United States was categorized by the National Center for Education Statistics into different literacy levels, with 92% of American adults having at least "Level 1" literacy in 2019. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level.
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
A sighted child who is reading at a basic level should be able to understand common words and answer simple questions about the information presented. They should also have enough fluency to get through the material in a timely manner. Over the course of a child's education, these foundations are built on to teach higher levels of math, science, and comprehension skills. Children who are blind not only have the education disadvantage of not being able to see: they also miss out on the very fundamental parts of early and advanced education if not provided with the necessary tools.
The Braille Challenge is an annual two-stage Braille literacy competition designed to motivate blind students to emphasize their study of Braille. The program parallels with the importance and educational purpose of a spelling bee for sighted children. Braille is a reading and writing method that breaks language into a code of raised dots. There are three grades of braille:
Reading Partners is a children's literacy nonprofit based in the San Francisco Bay Area with programs in over 40 school districts throughout California, New York, Washington DC, Maryland, Texas, Colorado, South Carolina, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Washington.
Worldreader is a 501(c)(3) global nonprofit organization that provides reading tools and programs to communities in the United States and in developing countries.
Access Books is a nonprofit volunteer organization that gives books to disadvantaged children's libraries in Southern California. These are primarily public and charter school libraries in the inner city, where over 90% of the population lives in poverty and books are generally scarce. As one study showed, children in Beverly Hills have ready access to as many as 400 times more books than children living in the Compton and Watts areas of South Los Angeles. Underfunded libraries also tend to be in worse physical condition and less user-friendly than their affluent counterparts.
Pop Culture Classroom, based in Denver, Colorado, is a nonprofit organization that educates in the areas of literacy and arts through alternative approaches to learning and character development. The organization creates educational programs for underserved youths, schools and communities by using comic books, graphic novels and related media to inspire passion for reading, art, and learning.
The World Literacy Foundation(WLF) is a global not-for-profit that works to lift young people out of poverty through literacy. Founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2003, the World Literacy Foundation operates on the principle that education is a basic human right. It aims to eradicate global illiteracy through the promotion of literacy and the provision of educational resources.
The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Boynton Beach, Florida. Its stated mission is to improve the quality of life of those residing in and around Palm Beach County, Florida, by promoting and achieving literacy. The ultimate goal of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County, is to ensure that every child and every adult in Palm Beach County becomes a reader. One in seven adults in Palm Beach County is unable to read and understand information found in books, newspapers, magazines, brochures and manuals. The organization's operates with the assistance of over 9,000 volunteers. In 2013, the Literacy Coalition provided services to more than 25,000 adults, to children and families.
Open Books is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois, that sells donated books to fund literacy programs for kids. Founded by Stacy Ratner in 2006, Open Books has since started several literacy programs for kids, and has taken part in literacy events in Chicago. Open Books has two store locations, based in Pilsen and West Loop areas of Chicago. Open Books employs adult volunteers who work in their bookstores, and with participants during literacy workshops.
Innovations for Learning is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the literacy of children attending under-resourced schools. It has stated it is grounded in the belief that learning to read is a basic civil right with the power to transform lives. Founded by Seth Weinberger in 1993, the philanthropically supported initiative has focused on beginning reading among the poorest children.