Scholastic has donated one million books to the early literacy nonprofit Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit that distributes free books to low-income families during doctor visits.
The nonprofit won the $150,000 David M. Rubenstein Prize from the Library of Congress last week. Reach Out and Read works with 12,000 medical providers in all 50 states, giving away 6.5 million books. Here’s more from the release:
Reach Out and Read continues to train pediatric providers and the low-income families they serve with the necessary tools to make reading aloud a daily activity, as the organization’s research shows reading aloud to children not only shapes a child’s vocabulary, literacy and testing skills, but children score three to six months ahead of non-Reach Out and Read peers on vocabulary testing. Exposure to books during the first five years of life, along with parents who are engaged in a child’s learning, greatly increases a child’s readiness to read, learn, and succeed in kindergarten and beyond.