Empowering parents to foster a love of reading

Raising A Reader’s mission is to engage parents and other caregivers in a routine of book sharing with their children from birth through age eight. The organization empowers parents as partners to develop, practice and sustain home literacy routines. Since its inception 15 years ago, RAR has reached 1.4 million children and their families nationwide.

Raising A Reader helps parents develop the habit of sharing books through RAR’s train-the-trainer model. It offers schools and community organizations an opportunity to deepen positive relationships that allow them to teach family-friendly versions of research-based practices that support book sharing at home. Raising A Reader rotates bright red bags filled with award winning books into children’s homes on a weekly basis, exposing children on average to more than 100 books per rotation cycle. The organization pairs this rotation with parent training, provided by classroom teachers and childcare workers, and library connections. At the end of the program, children receive a blue book bag to keep so they can continue the habit of book sharing and building a lifelong love of reading. Through Deutsche Bank’s support, 850 children and families are currently enrolled in Raising A Reader through Children’s Aid Society in Washington Heights and the South Bronx, New York City.

raisingareader.org

Third grade reading fluency is highly predictive of children's long-term school and life outcomes. A high percentage of children are dangerously behind.

Of the 16 million US children who live in poverty, roughly 8 million enter school without the language and literacy skills they need to become proficient readers by the end of third grade.