[Reading-For-Healthy-Families] Research for you

[Katie Anderson]

Hello!  At Cohort 5 Training Session Two, I mentioned the paper "America's Early Childhood Literacy Gap" has great summaries, quotes, and bits of information from a variety of research.  In particular, I mentioned that they reference three different instances in which government agencies use test scores to plan prisons.  I've copied the quotes below, you can read them in context and find citations/bibliographic references on Page 6 of the document at http://www.readfortherecord.org/site/DocServer/America_s_Early_Childhood_Literacy_Gap.pdf?docID=3923.

-"...because seven in ten prisoners perform at the lowest literacy skill levels, the state of California once planned how many jail cells they would build in the future by how many children are not reading on grade level by fourth grade."

-"Indiana Senator Evan Bayh has stated that determining the number of new prisons to build is based, in part, on the number of second graders not reading at second-grade level."

-"Dr. Grover (Russ) Whitehurst... Assistant Secretary of Education with the US Department of Education under the Bush administration stated that the predictability of reading for life success is so strong, that if you look at the proportion of middle-schoolers who are not at the basic level, who are really behind in reading, it is a very strong predictor of problems with the law and the need for jails down the line"

I encourage you to take 5-10 minutes to quickly skim through this paper to remind yourself the tremendous value of the work you are doing, and to highlight quotes and information you want to use with parents or your programs/library boards in the future.

Thank you,
Katie



Katie Anderson, Library Development Services
* Youth Services Consultant * Oregon Center for the Book Coordinator *
Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, OR 97301
katie.anderson at state.or.us, 503-378-2528
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