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Community Corner

Making Bedford Stuyvesant One of the Most Literate Communities in New York

Preventing the achievement gap starts at birth and at home with the NYC Imagination Library Initiative

On February 25th, the hosted a , a documentary that surveyed the state academic achievement within the U.S. public school system.

The film argues, citing strong evidence, that language arts, math and science skills proficiency of U.S. students generally is lagging behind those of other industrialized nations. Unless this trend is reversed, unemployment in the United States will remain high and wages will continue to stagnate.

Simply put, our youth will not win the higher wage jobs in the creative and science and technology sectors. 

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refers to the fact that the proficiency levels for African-American and Hispanic-American students are well below the average for other white and Asian American native born students and so strikingly low that, in the absence of massive, coordinated intervention by all major institutions and community-based organizations, most African-American and Hispanic-American youth will be forever relegated to low wage, low skill jobs, unemployment or worse.

In other words, things will get worse not better for minority children and families.

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The consensus of the participants at the film viewing at Restoration Plaza was parents needed to redouble their efforts to educate their children at home while also insist that public schools create higher educational outcomes for their children.

One simple way to boost youngsters’ language arts proficiency is to read aloud to them early and often. The NYC Imagination Library Initiative, headed by Bedford-Stuyvesant native Sharon Rencher, is a perfect way to get started early.

According to materials prepared by Ms. Rencher, the Imagination Library is a birth-to-five early literacy program, founded by singer-songwriter Dolly Parton. the program assists preschool children in developing vocabulary, school readiness and love of learning and reading by ensuring FREE, high quality, age appropriate books.

The books are mailed once a month directly to their homes, an effort to encourage parents to regularly read aloud to their preschool children.

With the arrival of the first book, the classic "The Little Red Engine That Could," every child experiences the joy of finding their very own book in their mailbox. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5 – and in their very last month in the program they receive "Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.”

By the time each child reaches age 5, he or she will have read at least 60 books.” (Bedford Stuyvesant should adopt a 1000 book goal for our 0- 5 year olds; in other words, approximately one book every other day for five years – a highly attainable goal.) 

The research is clear on the benefits of reading aloud to children at an early age, and the NYC Imagination Library can complement and support all school-based improvement efforts by proactively engaging preschool children and their families to address a root cause of low student achievement and prevent the achievement gap.

The research is also clear that a parent who does not read aloud to their child early and often is putting the child at a severe long term disadvantage compared to other children – a literacy disadvantage that most children do not recover from and that schools are not effective at overcoming.

In 2011, Restoration intends to unveil plans to mobilize a community-wide effort to make Bedford Stuyvesant one of the most literate communities in New York.  High literacy will eradicate poverty, increase job opportunities, and reduce incarceration rates and lower crime.

We will be asking you to join us in creating a community culture that prizes literacy and the first step is to ensure that your children, nieces and nephews under 5 years old are enrolled in the NYC Imagination Library.

For more information on the NYC Imagination Library Initiative, contact Sharon Rencher at SRenche@schools.nyc.gov.

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