Katha Pollitt's article "Stimulating Reading" hit home. Her premise that shrinking budgets, curtailed library hours and hard-hit classrooms where teachers have few or no resources is familiar to us here at First Book. The shocking fact is that in middle-income homes there is an average of thirteen books per child, but in low-income neighborhoods the ratio is one book for every 300 children. This lack of access to books, the most basic of tools for reading and education, is horrifying in a nation with a TV in nearly every home and a cell phone in every pocket.
According to Jeff McQuillan in his book The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions, "The only behavioral measure that correlates significantly with reading scores is the number of books in the home. An analysis of a national data set of nearly 100,000 United States school children found that access to printed materials--and not poverty--is the "critical variable affecting reading acquisition." How about that. It's simple. If kids have books, they stand a much better chance of becoming readers.
The good news is that there is a system in place to deliver these much-needed books. First Book is a nonprofit with the goal of providing access to books for millions of children living in low-income situations. At a time when library shelves stand empty, and there is no budget to procure books; at a time when cuts to health and human services have never been more of a disservice to this voiceless population of poor children; at a time when 80 percent of preschools and after-school programs serving disadvantaged children have no books for the children they look after, the good news is that the problem is fixable. And First Book stands ready to deliver on the promise to end illiteracy.
We've already delivered more than 65 million books--8 million last year alone. Our nonprofit uses a self-sustaining at-scale, hybrid solution to meet the staggering need. We've designed the First Book Marketplace: a model aggregating disenfranchised programs for the first time ever, and offering them books at the lowest cost possible. For programs serving children in low-income households, books are for the first time affordable, rather than a luxury. The First Book Marketplace offers books for all ages, and as long as the program serves a majority of children in need, they are eligible. With current capacity at 6-8 million books a year, we look forward to delivering more than 20 million annually within the next three years.
One teacher said: "We bring books to children in need in shelters and those waiting for a permanent home. These children do not have the comforts of a mom and dad to put them to sleep at night or to read them a bedside story. We can provide a beautiful book for them to read at night hoping to give them sweeter dreams and hope for the future."
First Book delivers on that promise of hope now, providing free and low-cost books to programs serving children in need. If we can muster support for this successful delivery system, we can reach capacity of 20M books annually within three years. To find out how to volunteer, register to receive books, or support First Book, visit www.firstbook.org.
Joan Sahlgren
First Book
Washington, DC
02/02/2009 @ 10:04am
While book-loving parents can always use help, plus those parents who are illiterate and don't like to admit it, one other problem seldom mentioned is literate parents who just don't like reading to their kids--or often, to themselves, and who therefore don't buy books. Children of such parents can't be blamed for not becoming readers. (And yes, families like that existed long before TV and video games, so let's not kid ourselves. ) Therefore, the heavy lifting, as one newspaper said, often lies in reaching out to such parents. Doing so will at least make them more likely to buy books for their kids at Goodwill or to get the free books at the local recycling center.
Kira Barnum
Somerville, MA
02/01/2009 @ 4:55pm
RSS