About Us
History
The READY! for Kindergarten program was developed by The Children's Reading Foundation and the Kennewick (WA) School District. In 1995, the Kennewick School Board set the exciting goal that 90% of their students would read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. This goal led to a series of K-3 program changes supported by funding from a community levy in 1996.
The School District also recognized the importance of engaging parents (especially those of preschoolers) and community members in the effort to meet the 90% reading goal. Since the District did not want to be in the position of “telling parents what to do”, and Kennewick is part of a larger eleven district community, it was decided that the “reading message” could be delivered most effectively by a non-profit organization that could reach out to the broader community.
It was at this point, in February of 1996, that the Reading Foundation was formed. The mission of the Reading Foundation is to assure that students read at grade level by the end of third grade, with an initial focus on encouraging parents to read with their children for 20 minutes each day to help them enter kindergarten with grade level skills.
In 1999, as part of its systematic efforts to measure and report student outcomes, the Kennewick School District standardized the assessment of entering kindergarteners. (Previously, it had varied from building to building). The results of the district-wide standardized assessment were sobering—only 50% of entering kindergarteners in the Fall of 2000 scored at an age-appropriate level in language and literacy skills. This data correlated with data demonstrating about the same number of students not reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade. In a nutshell, half of the District's entering kindergarteners were already two to three years behind “average” kindergarten children on the first day of school. The standardized assessment turned out to be “the most important thing we did in terms of student learning” since it showed that “we didn't create the achievement gap; kids came with it.”
Analysis of data for other grade levels documented the persistence of the achievement gap. These data showed that Kennewick was doing a good job in helping children make annual growth once they were in school, but the gap shown among entering kindergarteners remained in later grades. Even though remediation efforts helped the lowest performing students increase their skills, the highest performing students also increased their skills, thus the achievement gap remained the same.
With these realizations came a new commitment to invest in early intervention as an alternative to later remediation. The solution apparently lay with reaching out to parents and families before their children entered school. The District asked the Reading Foundation to design a program that would supplement their “read with your child” campaign and help close the achievement gap among entering kindergarteners.
In researching possible models, the Reading Foundation was guided by two essential criteria: (1) the primary focus should be literacy skills, and (2) it should be a family-based program. The second criteria was driven by research documenting the benefits of family literacy experiences as well as the practical consideration that it would be the most cost-effective way to reach Kennewick's 5,000 children in the birth to five years age range.
Only 300 of the District's three and four-year-olds are served though District-operated ECEAP and special needs preschool programs. The challenge was finding a way to reach the remaining 4,700 children, half of whom could be expected to enter kindergarten already behind if they did not have the benefit of early intervention. A family-based program had the additional advantage of recognizing parents as their children's first and primary teacher.
With essential criteria clearly established, plans for the new parent program swiftly developed. At its heart was the central theme of providing parents with the targets, tools and training they need to help their children be successful in school. By the spring of 2001, READY! For Kindergarten hosted its first pilot class. The response from parents was so overwhelming, it was immediately apparent that the program could be developed and expanded even further than originally anticipated. In March of 2003, READY! for Kindergarten was officially launched in Kennewick. Since then, hundreds of Kennewick parents have attended sessions three times per year with great enthusiasm.
Naturally, word of this great program spread quickly. It wasn't long before neighboring districts became interested in providing READY! for their parents. By 2006, READY! for Kindergarten was in such high demand that the National READY! for Kindergarten program was created as a separate entity designed specifically to meet the needs of a growing list of customers. Due to rapid growth, the offices of the National READY! for Kindergarten program were relocated in the summer of 2008 to a much larger building with a complete warehouse and shipping facility. Today, READY! for Kindergarten currently serves over 60 school districts across the U.S. and Canada—and the calls continue to come in almost every day!
For more information about the program, or how to bring READY! for Kindergarten to your school district, please contact us.
1Methods for the establishment of this goal and how to create accountability for achieving it are described in The 90% Reading Goal by Lynn Fielding, Nancy Kerr and Paul Rosier (Kennewick: The New Foundation Press, 1998).
2Since then, the foundation has evolved into two organizations: The Mid-Columbia Reading Foundation, comprised of the original eleven districts, and The Children's Reading Foundation, which is based in Kennewick and has fifteen affiliated foundations in five states serving about 900,000 students in 244 districts.
3Activities in support of the “20 minutes a day reading campaign” include ongoing media efforts, distribution of books, and development of other literacy materials.
4Nancy Kerr, Phone Interview 02/14/2005
5These findings are consistent with national data for both reading and math. See Delivering on the Promise by Lynn Fielding, Nancy Kerr, and Paul Rosier (Kennewick: The New Foundation Pres, 2004), pp. 160 and 162.
6National Research Council. Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Edited by Catherine E. Snow, Susan Burns and Peg griffin, Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998.
