U .S . Department of Education Innovative Approaches to Literacy Grant

In 2014, The Children’s Reading Foundation was awarded a two-year, $3.8 million Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) federal grant by the U.S. Department of Education to serve families in poverty nationwide. The foundation is the only national nonprofit awarded an IAL grant for a second consecutive cycle. The Children’s Reading Foundation was previously awarded a $2.9 million IAL grant for 2012 – 2014. As part of its IAL work, in fiscal year 2015, The Children’s Reading Foundation served more than 4,000 families with the READY! for Kindergarten program and distributed more than 150,000 books to children from birth to age 8 in more than 50 disadvantaged school districts throughout the country.

Students of families exposed to READY! had “statistically significant higher scores” (based on the DIBELS and WJLNI) than those whose families were not exposed to the READY! program. Average DIBELS Letter Naming scores were 17.24 and 12.73 respectively.

— Washington State University and Chicago School of Professional Psychology 2015 Study:

The Children’s Reading Foundation of Greater Chicago (Illinois) PRELIMINARY DATA Randomized Control Trial: Evaluating the Efficacy of READY! U.S. Department of Education IAL Grant