Early Literacy Specialists

Families are visited twice weekly by well-trained and supervised home visitors, 30 minutes each time. Relationship is built over at least 92 visits with the family over two school years.  The home visitor models reading, playing and conversation activities.

Educational Gift Each Week

Each week the home visitor brings a gift of a new book or toy.  The biggest gift is the sharing of words. 

Parent = First Teacher

This program provides each parent with the skills to be the child’s first, best teacher. This bond is critical to school preparedness and the benefits last.  Everyone wins!

Prepared for Success
Tracked as a group, the children:

  • Develop the cognitive and social-emotional skills children need for school success.

  • Enter school as prepared as their middle-class peers.

  • Are 50% less likely to need special education classes.

  • Perform at or above state and national norms throughout elementary and middle school.

  • Graduate from high school at the same rate as middle-class students (30% higher than the control group in a study.)

 
 
 

Did you know that children in low-income homes hear 30 million less words by the age 3 than their more affluent peers?

 

“This program [ParentChild+] arguably has the best cost-benefit ratio of any literacy program. Its years of data demonstrate that it actually changes parental behaviors... and prompts parents to foster language development in their children.”
— Dr. Todd Risley, co-author of the landmark book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children

Dr. Risley is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Alaska and a Senior Scientist at the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at the University of Kansas. He has authored more than 100 professional articles, as well as five books and monographs, which have been widely cited and reprinted.