Advancing Early Literacy in Idaho

Advancing Early Literacy in Idaho SBOE, February 16, 2012 Contact for More Info: Stephanie Bailey-White Idaho Commission for Libraries 325 W State St. / Boise, ID 83702 stephanie.bailey-white@libraries.idaho.gov (208) 639-4145

Preschoolers from low-income families have fewer home and preschool language experiences, a gap that prevents many from entering school prepared. Research shows caregivers and parents who read to their preschool children have children with better vocabulary skills, more background knowledge, better expressive and receptive language abilities, and stronger phonological awareness (Bus, van Ijensoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994).

Family poverty is significantly associated with lower reading achievement scores for children and Idaho has a high percentage of families living in poverty. • In 2010, 55 percent of infants born in Idaho received Women Infant Children (WIC) services, and in 2011-2012 over 50 percent of Idaho public school children were eligible for free and reduced school lunch.

Children who start school behind tend to stay behind. Scores from the Idaho Reading Indicator show that 18 percent of children entering kindergarten in 2010 did not recognize three or more letters of the alphabet. Another 25 percent recognized fewer than 11. • The earlier we can help these children the better. Research shows that children who are not reading on grade level by the end of first grade only have a 1 in 8 chance of ever catching up without costly direct intervention.

The number of Idaho children who are not reading on grade level leads to a large number of students who do not complete high school or go on to college. • Only 33 percent of Idaho’s fourth graders scored proficient or higher on the National Assessment of Educational Progress; thirty-six percent scored at the basic level and 31 percent below basic. • Reading scores have important implications for later achievement. Basic readers are more than twice as likely as proficient readers to fail to graduate from high school. Below basic readers are almost six times as likely to fail to graduate.

Read to Me Vision Our vision is for all parents and caregivers to nurture their children’s early literacy skills, and for all children to develop as independent readers and become lifelong learners.

Three-Pronged Approach • Outreach • Public Information • Professional Development

OUTREACH Reaching “underserved” populations • Community partnerships are required for all Read to Me programs • Childcare / Preschools • Schools / Head Start • Summer Nutrition Programs • WIC / Health Clinics

Idaho Child Care Reads • Libraries host 2-4 hour early literacy workshops for child care providers • Book bags and 20 paperbacks provided • 98% report they are more likely to use library resources as a result of attending

Jump Start Program • Librarians host tables at kindergarten registration • Read to Me provides early literacy folders for parents that libraries customize. • Free books for all kids. Reaching Families Where They Are …

Every Child Ready to Read Programs • Series of six scripted enhanced storytimes • Families attend together • Read to Me provides a book at each, letter magnets, book bag & starter sets • All ages (at most) • Great evaluation data

Read to Me First Book Program • Provides a paperback or board book each month for nine months, plus a parent handout. Six of nine months focus is on one of the six skills. • Library staff distribute the books and bookworms each month and plan a special event at the library for First Book families. • The availability of reading material in the home, whether owned or borrowed from the library, is directly associated with children’s achievement in reading comprehension. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001)

2nd Approach: PUBLIC INFORMATION • Website: http://libraries.idaho.gov/landing/read-to-me • Free support materials for anyone in the state • Léeme en español • Literacy Stations on website • Working with state and local partners to spread the word

3rd Approach: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT • The Scoop! enewsletter – anyone can subscribe to that • Fall trainings held regionally • Annual meeting • Webinars / Website • Evaluation Projects

Research There’s a research or evaluationcomponent to nearly everything we do. “The changes in parent behaviors in regard to children’s early literacy are striking.” — Roger A. Stewart, Ph.D.

Follow-up Telephone Survey Fall/Winter 2009-2010As a result of the Family Workshops/First Book program, do you…

Access to Print Materials Improves Children’s Reading Findings from a Meta-Analytic Review published August, 2010 showed children’s book lending and book ownership programs improve children’s reading performance. “Across all reports, there appears to be a positive relationship between children’s access to print materials and outcomes, and the magnitude of the relationship between children’s access to print material and outcomes, and the magnitude of that relationship is approximately .49 standard deviations. At least part of that relationship appears to be causal, in that children’s access to print materials produces positive impacts on children’s outcomes. Positive impacts were seen for both interventions that lent print materials to children and interventions that gave print material to children to keep…. When children have more access to books and other print material, they develop more positive attitudes toward reading and learning.” The meta-analysis also showed a causal role between increased access to materials and increases in the amount of reading children do, increases in children’s emergent literacy skills, and improvements in children’s reading achievement. This research directly aligns with findings from evaluations of the ICfL Read to Me First Book program.

What’s Down the Road? Provide more learning opportunities and greater access to books and resources for Idaho's youngest children. Working with our partners, we hope to try new strategies to greatly increase the amount of reading done in homes and child care sites. The National Leadership Grant opportunity would provide $250,000 over three years to help increase school readiness. We hope to offer “Books in a Bag” programs in 250 locations throughout Idaho.

What’s Down the Road … 2) Prevent summer learning loss. We want to continue to build partnerships statewide and keep more children reading over the summer. 3) Strengthen our school libraries. We have identified some gaps in services available to Idaho students and will be working hard to address those. We are doing a baseline study this year to gather additional information and hope to have some pilot programs up and running by the start of the 2012-13 school year.

In Summary … We know that kids who read succeed. By working with our state and community partners, we can get more books and early literacy into the hands of the families in our communities and help create a state of readers.

Advancing Early Literacy in Idaho