Spotlight on Raising A Reader

United Way’s Raising A Reader program seeks to give every child an equal opportunity to succeed by promoting literacy. Raising A Reader is a take-home book bag program, which targets the most vulnerable population: low income families where parents are poor readers or do not speak English well. It targets the first five years of life, a vital development window when 90% of brain growth occurs. The program has demonstrated a 471% increase in the percentage of low-income parents sharing books with their children five times or more each week.  Watch Raising A Reader’s Director, Betsy Keever, discuss the program here!