READ's Story

READ was created to address reading inequities faced by our community’s youngest and most economically vulnerable children by ensuring that these babies and young children have new, quality, culturally relevant books of their own that are mirrors and windows into their everyday lives and communities. READ works with their families to establish home libraries and create a daily routine of reading together. The goal is for children to arrive at school with the knowledge and skills they need to learn. When all children arrive at school ready to learn, the entire community benefits.

Why babies and books?

FACT: All babies are born with the same number of neurons...BILLIONS.

FACT: Neurons are pretty much useless unless they make a connection (aka synapse).

FACT: Connections are made through talking, singing, cuddling, and most importantly, READING books with your baby. Every time a book is read to a baby, a connection is made in their brain, that is, a neuron is activated (*lit up*). Isn't that amazing?! It's that simple.

BUT without books in the home, reading to babies and young children every day is nearly impossible.

On average, children from low-income families have 1 book compared to 12 books that their peers from middle income families have.
As a result, these young children hear 25 hours of 1-to-1 reading before school while children from middle-income families hear 1,000 hours of listening to books read aloud.
By age 3, a child from a low-income family has a listening vocabulary of 500 words, compared to 1,100 for their peers from middle-income families.
Arriving at school, they score 60% lower on cognitive tests and lag 12-14 months behind in language and pre-reading skills.

(Scariest) FACT: At age 3, if a synapse has NOT made or strengthen a connection, the brain will PRUNE it!

Let that sink in.

If a young child's brain has not been *lit up* by hours of reading with their grown-up, the brain will begin eliminating weak connections. To begin literacy efforts with a child with fewer connections after the age of 3 will be much more difficult. These children will always struggle to catch up: Children who start behind, stay behind. Children who start ahead, stay ahead.

READ was created to address this reading inequity. We meet expectant, uninsured families at their prenatal appointments and start them off with a baby book bag filled with five board books plus tips for reading. When the baby is born, they are automatically enrolled in our cornerstone program READ With Me and receive a texted order form for a new FREE, quality, culturally relevant book each month for their baby's first year. In addition, they receive monthly reading texts and tips.

100% of families report READ With Me has helped them build a home library

100% of families report spending more time reading with their baby.

97% of families report they have made reading part of their daily routine

Over 50% of our families report READ is their only source of books

When you support READ, YOU are enhancing the literacy and language experiences of economically vulnerable babies and toddlers at their most vital brain development by providing books for them to keep and for parents to read aloud. These early simple acts of reading together sets a baby on the path to future academic success and self-sufficiency.

Innovative Funding Approach

In the spirit of social innovation, Read Early And Daily (READ) launched an online/pop-up children's bookstore, READ Books, to help fund its programs. READ Books offers online, mobile (Book Bus), and brick-and-mortar (Book Nook) options for book purchasing to the community. In addition, READ Books hosts over 24 school book fairs every year. Community members appreciate that their purchases of READ’s curated, diverse and inclusive titles help support the provision of services to their less-fortunate neighbors. Revenue generated by every book purchased through READ Books is used to purchase books for the economically vulnerable young children enrolled in READ programs. The funding model simply is “buy a book, give a book.”

In addition to providing the revenue to buy books for the children READ serves, READ Books provides the opportunity to educate community members about: book deserts and inequities in early literacy; how the community benefits when all children have home libraries and are read to on a regular basis; and the importance of diverse and inclusive titles.

Our selection of books are carefully curated for: cultural understanding, diversity and inclusion, fresh perspectives, compelling stories, engaging illustrations, enduring readability, a sense of curiosity and wonder, PLUS lots of laughter.

An Evening of Wine & Literacy

a grown-up book fair benefitting READ