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Changing Children's Lives With the Gift of Literacy

Changing Children's Lives With the Gift of Literacy

Imagine a young child receiving a book in the mail every month until the age of five. What better way to say reading is important? Children enrolled in the Ferst Program receive a new book every month in the mail until their 5th birthday. There is absolutely no cost (ever) to registered children in participating areas! The program is made possible through the partnership with local, all-volunteer Community Action Teams (CATs).

Ferst Readers is a 501C3 organization whose funding is provided through private donations, corporate sponsorships, and grants. Contact us to help with a local program or get a new one started in your area so that we may work together to bring the gift of literacy to every child from birth-5 years old. Partnering together, we can help prepare every child for success in school and in life.

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  • For Parents

    The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. Read More >>>
     

  • Program Overview

    Our Mission: Strengthening communities by providing quality books and literacy resources for children and their families to use at home during the earliest stages of development. Read More >>>

  • Get Involved

    Approximately 61 percent of low-income families do not have a single piece of reading material suitable for a child. Find out how you can help. Read More >>>
     

Case for Support

2022-2024 Strategic Plan

Ferst Readers’ Long-Range Planning Committee (LRPC) has responsibility for developing and recommending a strategic plan and long-range goals and objectives that help guide the governance, program, budget and development priorities of Ferst Readers.

The principal purposes of long-range planning for Ferst Readers are:

  • to reaffirm Ferst Readers’ central role in advancing childhood literacy,
  • to determine which activities in pursuit of its mission are best carried out by Ferst Readers,
  • to encourage Ferst Readers’ Community Action Teams to develop long-range goals and plans,
  • to provide a basis for setting priorities in the face of legitimate but competing claims for limited Ferst Readers resources, thereby creating a coherent approach to helping advance childhood literacy as a societal priority, and
  • to rekindle and strengthen the sense of common purpose among Ferst Readers board members through an open and inclusive planning process.

Click here to download the Ferst Readers Strategies and Plan 2022-2024 (PDF)

Financial Statements

At Ferst Readers, we are committed to transparency and accountability in our effort to be excellent stewards of the resources entrusted to us by our donors. More than 90% of our spending goes directly to support our programs - for an incredible impact, dollar for dollar.

As you review our financial statements, we hope you will be encouraged to think of Ferst Readers when looking for the greatest impact for your charitable dollar.

Adopt A Reader

The facts are staggering.

  • 61% of low-income families do not have a single book suitable for a child.1
  • Perhaps the most serious problem with current literacy campaigns is that they ignore, and even divert attention from, the real problem: Lack of access to books for children of poverty.2
  • Half of children from low-income communities start first grade up to two years behind their peers.3
  • Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare.4
  • In middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children.5

Ferst Readers cannot address all the issues of early literacy; however, we can eliminate one of the major reasons why parents do not read to their child – the availability of quality books in the home. Books delivered not just once, but up to 60 times in the child’s critical years of development. Each delivery is wrapped in love and excitement and each is another step toward helping children to arrive at kindergarten ready to learn!

What the research tells us:

  • The single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.6
  • By the age of 2, children who are read to regularly display greater language comprehension, larger vocabularies, and higher cognitive skills than their peers.7
  • The only behavior measure that correlates significantly with reading scores is the number of books in the home.8
  • The most successful way to improve the reading achievement of low-income children is to increase their access to print.9
  • Creating a steady stream of new, age-appropriate books has been shown to nearly triple interest in reading within months.10

Some things can wait.
Investing in our youngest children is not one of them.
Adopt a reader today.

ADOPT A READER NOW

 

References:

1 Reading Literacy in the United States: Findings from the IEA Reading Literacy Study. (1996).
2 Krashen, 2007
3 Brizius, J. A., & Foster S. A. (1993). Generation to Generation: Realizing the Promise of Family Literacy. High/Scope Press.
4 BegintoRead.com
5 Neuman, Susan B. and David K. Dickinson, ed. Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Volume 2. New York, NY: 2006,.
6 National Commission on Reading, 1985.
7 Raikes, H., Pan, B.A., Luze, G.J., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S.,Brooks-Gunn, J., Constantine,J., Tarullo, L.B., Raikes, H.A., Rod-riguez, E. (2006). “Mother-child book reading in low-income families: Correlates and outcomes during the first three years of life.” Child Development, 77(4).
8 The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions, 1998.
9 Newman, Sanford, et all. “American’s Child Care Crisis: A Crime Prevention Tragedy”; Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 2000
10 Harris, Louis. An Assessment of the Impact of First Book’s Northeast Program. January 2003.
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Thank you for visiting Ferst Readers!

Ensuring that children develop early literacy skills is one of the most important things we can do - as parents, as teachers - and as a society.

Won't you help us make a difference?

Adopt a reader today!   Make a Donation!