Page Ahead Childrens Literacy Prgm

Story Leaders: Over the course of a year, low-income children hear 8 million fewer words than children from affluent families. Story Leaders aims to close this word gap by facilitating literacy training and access to books for families whose children could gain the most from the program. Page Ahead partners with ECEAP and Head Start classrooms to provide early literacy training for teachers, new books for children, and home reading support for families. During the 2023-24 school year, 1,786 students received nearly 15,475 new books.

Books for Kids: Providing access to books for children in need is a proven way to increase the amount of time they spend reading. Page Ahead's original flagship program, Books for Kids, reached 1,519 children in need with 2,443 new, high-quality, age-appropriate books in 2023-24. To efficiently reach the children most in need, Page Ahead collaborates with preschools, elementary schools, and social service agencies across Washington State. Page Ahead provides a wide variety of books through fun, motivational reading events. Empowering children to make their own choices ensures that each child has reading material suited to their individual interest.

Book Oasis: In high-income communities, there are about 13 books for every child; in high-poverty communities, there is one book for every 300 children. These neighborhoods are considered book deserts, and the children who live in them have a much harder time accessing the appropriate reading material they need to become strong readers. Book Oasis builds and places specially designed little free libraries in neighborhood book deserts and stocks them with great new children's books for kids to access freely. Volunteers monitor each oasis and restock them monthly. In 23-24, Page Ahead volunteers stocked 19 Book Oasis libraries with 6,007 new children's books through the program.

Story Times: Trained volunteers bring reading fun and inspiration to preschool and kindergarten age children in the Puget Sound area and Spokane.

Volunteer Services: Page Ahead volunteers conduct book drives, read with children, and sort and pack books for program sites.