Research

For over ten years, Raising A Reader has been a leader in evidence-based literacy programming (http://www NULL.raisingareader NULL.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_impact_outcomes)for young children. Outcome data demonstrate that Raising A Reader effectively develops family reading habits, and by doing so, helps young children enter school ready to learn.

A 2009-10 San Francisco Unified School District report on school readiness (http://www NULL.first5sf NULL.org/downloads/SFUSD_readiness09_rpt NULL.pdf)found, “children whose families made greater use of local family resources ( i.e. the public library, zoo, museums, parks, family resource centers, or Raising A Reader) scored higher in overall readiness than other children. In addition, children who were read to were also more school-ready than other children.

We invite you to the review the 2003 Assessment of Early Literacy Skills and Effects Associated with Raising A Reader, (http://raisingareaderbayarea NULL.org/wp-content/themes/art-magazine/images/pdf/san_franciso_RAR_Study_ASR_2003 NULL.pdf) produced by United Way of the Bay Area, San Francisco County and Applied Survey Research, Watsonville, CA.

18 independent evaluations conducted across the U.S. over 10 years have validated the effectiveness of Raising A Reader at increasing:

• access to books – both the number of books in the home and access and exposure to books;
• family engagement – including increasing parent knowledge about the importance of sharing books to increase reading readiness;
• family literacy behaviors – including the frequency of parent-child reading at home and the development of reading routines at home;
• community connections – increasing the number of family visits to the library;
• child motivation - children’s enjoyment and value of reading, oral language skills and vocabulary; and
• emergent literacy skills – including book knowledge, comprehension, print knowledge, letter naming fluency, rhyming and initial sound fluency.

Local Impact results show it’s working in San Francisco (http://raisingareaderbayarea NULL.org/program-and-impact/san-francisco/) and Alameda Counties! (http://raisingareaderbayarea NULL.org/program-and-impact/alameda-county/)

Current Evaluations

Anthony, J., Principal Investigator: Promoting School Readiness and Literacy-rich Home Environments through the Texas Early Education Model and Raising a Reader. University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Children’s Learning Institute

Perez-Granados, D.R., Principal Investigator: Parent-toddler Book Sharing in Low-income Families: Effectiveness of a Home-Based Intervention. California State University, Monterey Bay & Stanford University, Children’s Health Council Preliminary findings

For more information on these evaluation studies please contact the Raising A Reader National Office. (http://www NULL.raisingareader NULL.org)