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President Barack Obama is looking to boost the literacy rate of low-income kids with a plan to offer free access to 10,000 e-books.
This is a welcome move, as research shows 80 percent of low-income children lag below their grade level in reading skills and lack books at home.
According to Ann O’Leary, vice president and director of the children and families program at Next Generation, by the time low-income children reach three years of age, they have amassed a vocabulary of about 500 words. Meanwhile children of the same age from more affluent households have learned more than twice as many words, with a vocabulary of about 1,100.
The White House will partner with publishers and libraries. There are $250 million in e-book commitments from publishers, including from the five major publishing houses: Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH’s Macmillan, CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc, Penguin Random House, Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group Inc, and News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers LLC, reports Reuters.
Also, the New York Public Library is creating an app to connect low-income kids with the books.
“If we’re serious about living up to what our country is about, then we have to consider what we can do to provide opportunities in every community, not just when they’re on the front page, but every day,” said Jeff Zients, Obama’s top economic adviser, in a briefing with reporters.
And since kids will need computers and devices to read these free e-books, the White House already has a plan in place to upgrade Internet services for schools and libraries, with private sector help from companies such as Apple, which pledged $100 million in devices to low-income schools.
