Early Child Literacy Partnership Results Report

Partners of our Early Child Literacy program who started families they serve in our home reading program in 2009 are now reporting results of their at-risk families.

These parents are poverty-low income level, usually with low interest in literacy. Their children are the demographic that becomes at-risk to fail in Kindergarten, stay 2 years behind age mates throughout school and are 3 to 4 times more likely to drop out of school before graduation.
After only 4 months following the parent tips given in "Enjoy Books with Children" presented by their home visitors to them, there has been a transformation.

These parents have children from Infant through five years old. "Some parents were very hesitant about reading in the beginning but once they started they began to realize that they could read with their child. Mothers began to see the interest shown by their children and found it a great source of parent/child activity.", the director of a family service shared.

Starting at age 1 year old parents reading Teddy Bear's Favorite Pictures with their child saw an increase in the child's ability to relate to a book. This study group had children ranging up to 5 years old, with the largest age concentration 2-4years old.

Most of these parents now read 5 times a week, for an average of 9-12 minutes a day, which exceeds the success metrics for four months into the program. 85% liked reading this book with their child with at least 90% using the "Parents Points" step-by-step guidelines.

This program continues with a second results report at 8 months into the program. Literacy for Tykes hopes these new reading habits will become a welcome part of everyday life for these families. At the end of our year-long program, we encourage parents to get library cards at regional libraries to continue their exploration of the wonderful world of books.

We are delighted with the results of this study group which exceeds our expectations. The first long-range goal of Early Child Literacy Partnership is to create confidence and interest in parents that reading daily to their child for 20 minutes a day is do-able and beneficial and FUN. The second long-range goal is that this parent/child interaction will nurture visual literacy skills and lifelong learning skills, as well as social skills that will better prepare each child for kindergarten and life success.

Based on these successful results we would like to expand this Early Child Literacy Program to nine counties at the 4 year old level for other at-risk poverty-low income level families in rural Virginia, as well as continue to supply books and materials to current partners. Literacy is a perennial issue in this region. We believe this program is repeatable with most at-risk populations.

To support this program please use Literacy for Tykes Main Website Link on the right side of this page which will take you to our Paypal button on www.LiteracyForTykes.com