The Peninsula Community Foundation in California, the sixth largest grant making institution in the United States, is home to the Center for Venture Philanthropy. The Center was established as a place where donors can make positive changes in San Francisco and Silicon Valley communities. At the Center for Venture Philanthropy, investors identify problem areas and then craft and fund business plans to address specific issues. The Center’s research revealed that, by the completion of kindergarten, low-income children had spent just 25 hours reading while middle-income children had spent 1,700 hours reading.
To help close that gap, in 1999, the Center piloted a program called Raising a Reader. The program targets children from low-income families where the parents either do not read well themselves or do not have a firm grasp of English. These very young children, from babies through 5 years old, are given bags of new books to take home on a rotational basis, giving them hands-on access to scores of books, so that they have a fighting chance to develop the pre-reading skills needed to be kindergarten ready. But Raising a Reader does not stop there. The program trains parents how to read aloud and, for parents who cannot read well, how to tell a story based on the pictures in a book. Raising a Reader has translated its materials into 11 languages.
The results have been impressive. The program reports that, in San Francisco, there has been almost a 70 percent improvement in pre-reading skills. Head Start children who have gone through the program score much higher on pre-reading tests than those who have not. And, although the program was created to serve the needs of two California counties, in true venture capital tradition, it now offers a comprehensive
methodology that comes in a turn-key kit, which has been adopted by 120 affiliates and has reached 200,000 children in 32 states and four foreign countries.
In general, between one-quarter and one-third of the rising kindergartener population in the U.S. is not kindergarten ready. Through Raising a Reader and other readiness programs, the odds are slowly, but steadily getting better for children nationwide.
This year, based on criteria that included social impact, aspirations and growth, entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability, the Raising a Reader program won the annual Social Capitalist Award given by the entrepreneur magazine Fast Company.
Visit the Raising a Reader website for more information.
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