Raising A Reader MA

Program Overview

Raising A Reader MA partners with regional organizations to help parents with young children to develop, practice, and maintain shared reading habits, which foster vocabulary and language skills essential to reading readiness. Our vision is to equip all parents and caregivers to become agents of change, as their child's first teachers, to eliminate the opportunity gap that impacts success in school and beyond.We work through Massachusetts, and in FYE16, served nearly 12,000 families, primarily in Gateway communities.

We partner with programs that work directly with families with children ages 0-6, such as child care centers, public schools, home visiting programs, and adult education programs, and offer a dual intervention. First, red bags filled with high quality children's books rotate through the families' homes so over the course of the year they get to share dozens of titles together. Second, we offer parents and other caregivers opportunities to attend skill building workshops that focus on dialogic (interactive) reading strategies. These workshops are complemented by twice-weekly text message and an educational DVD for parents.

Raising A Reader MA's evidence-based model is supported by decades of research that show that one of the most effective ways to prepare young children for success in kindergarten and beyond is to read to them at home before starting school.

Raising A Reader MA has begun to produce a series of videos that model dialogic reading strategies. View them here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLycr3jQv1NL....

Cost Info

Student and Volunteer Success Stories

"I believe that most of us like to read, but personally, I learned here HOW to read."-Chelsea, MA Parent

"It's hard to come to these workshops because I have to work, but every sacrifice has it's reward, and so these workshops are great because they're going to help our kids a lot." –Revere, MA Parent

"At our program, we are always discussing the importance of parental involvement in their children's education. Having Raising A Reader partnering with us in this initiative provides us with a great opportunity to offer hands on literacy activities to our parents."- Lawrence, MA Partner