Children's Aid Society

In 2010, Children’s Aid Society (CAS) became a Raising A Reader Affiliate that  served one preschool site in East Harlem, New York. With a generous grant from Deutsche Bank in 2012, numbers increased to 315 children in Washington Heights, New York. The support not only allowed CAS  to expand the program but also hire interpreters for parent nights and translate materials into less common Spanish dialects. In the Washington Heights community, where  there is a high Latino population with 75% of the  families speaking Spanish, the translators made the parent workshops a success. One parent from PS 5 Head Start shares, “The program is great. We read the books and then we discuss the stories together. We also love the fact they are bilingual.”

In the most recent parent pre/post surveys, there was a  statistically significant increase in the amount of time spent reading together and the amount of books read between adult and child.   Results from the surveys also revealed a 19% increase in the level of parent awareness regarding the importance of home literacy.

In  Fall 2015, the partnership continued with 200 additional children in the Bronx. With the Deutsche Bank’s support, more than 1,000 children and families have already participated in the program. One parent mentions, “I really like the red bags and the books. We read every afternoon and since having the bags we read more often. We love having a variety of books.”

If you are located in New York and want to support Raising A Reader in your community, volunteers and  guest readers are appreciated in preschool classrooms.

If you want to get involved, contact  volunteer@raisingareader.org.

For more information on Children’s Aid Society, visit www.childrensaidsociety.org.