Giving Compass' Take:

• Penny Nixon, writing for The Hechinger Report, discusses how she launched the Universal Early Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia to strengthen early childhood literacy in the community. 

• What is the foundation of an effective early childhood literacy program? 

• Read more about how funders can foster literacy programs. 

We must ensure that our youngest learners are taught how to read. The research is clear: Children who struggle to read in the early grades rarely catch up with their peers. They are far more likely to suffer low self-esteem, they increasingly fall behind in other subjects and they likely won’t graduate from high school. For children who live in poverty, struggles with early literacy are often devastating.

Research shows that low-income children who cannot read at grade-level by third grade are six times more likely to drop out of high school than their more affluent peers. On the flip side, research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that children who read proficiently by the end of third grade are more likely to graduate from high school and to be economically successful in adulthood.

When I became a teacher — and eventually a principal and chief academic officer in Philadelphia schools — I knew that early literacy had to be one of my top priorities.

Five years ago, I took the helm of eight struggling schools educating 5,000 students in Philadelphia’s Universal Schools, a group of charter schools with lagging academic scores, high principal and teacher turnover and nonexistent parental involvement.

For me, this challenge was as much personal as it was professional. With my grandmother’s voice in my head, I launched the Universal Early Literacy Initiative with the support of a five-year grant from the William Penn Foundation. We partnered with the Philadelphia-based Children’s Literacy Initiative to provide K-3 teachers with professional development on high-quality literacy and instructional strategies, as well as individualized coaching.

Read the full article about early childhood literacy by Penny Nixon at The Hechinger Report