Attention Walmart Associates: Why Vote for Read to Grow?

Imagine this: You are five years old and have never owned a book or been read to. You start kindergarten and realize that many of your classmates already know how to open and hold a book correctly. They can recognize letters, and even know the sounds some letters make. When you start learning to read, you struggle. You feel frustrated and fall even further behind. Once eager to learn, you lose interest in school.

You can help Connecticut children get a good start in life.

Support Read to Grow’s work through the Walmart Associates Choice Program, and give thousands of Connecticut children a chance to have books of their own at home and to develop the early literacy skills they need to succeed in school and in life. 

DO YOU KNOW:

• Connecticut’s achievement gap is the largest in the nation and that gap begins before children walk through the kindergarten door.
  

• Half the children from the state’s poorest districts do not have the skills they need to enter kindergarten.
  

• Of every 100 children who leave first grade as poor readers, 88 will still be poor readers at the end of third grade.

• Sixty-one percent of low-income families don’t have children’s books in the home.
  

Research shows that reading aloud to children is the single most important way to prevent low literacy. Studies also show that the earlier children are exposed to language and books, the greater the impact, and that children who are read to from birth do better in school right from the start.

Read to Grow is the only statewide nonprofit that engages parents in their child’s literacy development immediately after birth. We connect with parents on the hospital maternity unit, where they receive a literacy packet containing a new children’s book and a guide that explains how they can foster their baby's healthy development, as their child's first teachers. 

Our work carries into Connecticut communities across the state, where we provide books to families and to a network of more than 300 community-based education, healthcare and social service agencies that interact with infants, toddler, school-aged children and their parents, supporting ongoing literacy development.

Read to Grow currently reaches 18,000 newborns and their parents---that's 50% of all babies born in Connecticut this year---and distributes over 100,000 children’s books statewide.

In the last few years, our troubled economy has created an enormous increase in the number of book requests Read to Grow receives from clinics, schools, human services agencies and families. Many who were once thriving are now struggling to make ends meet. For others, a tough road has become even tougher. Books, parents tell us, become luxury items when food, shelter and utility bills need to be paid.

Yet, in study after study, books in the home are shown to be critical ingredients for fostering early language development and preparing children for school so they can start kindergarten ready to learn and succeed.

Please vote for Read to Grow today and give thousands of Connecticut children a chance for a brighter future.

Read more about our programs.

 Top      Printer Friendly