ATLANTA — One of the biggest obstacles to literacy is the scarcity of books for low-income families. For National Literacy Month, 11Alive is teaming with the nonprofit, Children Read, to collect books to give to preschoolers in need.
For the month of September, 11Alive is encouraging viewers to support Children Read, a 501(c)(3) organization in Atlanta that collects and distributes books to young children in Title 1 classrooms in DeKalb and Atlanta school systems, as well as the Head Start and Sheltering Arms programs. The books collected are for the children to take home and own.
Data shows 61% of lower income families have no children’s books in the home. This lack of books puts children at a disadvantage, because 75% of students who are poor readers in third grade remain poor readers in high school.
Middle-income children are read to aloud an average of 1,200 hours by the time they reach kindergarten. Lower-income children are able to read only about 25 hours.
Children develop much of their capacity to learn in the first three years of life when their brains grow to 90% of their eventual adult weight.
11Alive invites the public to join the campaign to help collect books this month.
An Amazon wish list has been set up for this campaign. (Click here to see it.)
Additional options to drop off books for pre-school children are available at the following locations:
- Children Read: 2936M N. Druid Hills Rd., Atlanta, GA 30329
- Tall Tales Book Shop: Toco Hill Shopping Center, 2105 Lavista Rd., Atlanta, GA 30329
- Greene's Fine Foods: 141 East Trinity Pl., Decatur, GA 30030
- Casseroles: 1393 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta, GA 30306
- Campbell Dental Group: 4840 Roswell Rd., Bldg. A, Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30342
- Quinn Windows: 3910 Lawrenceville Hwy., Tucker, GA 30084
- Brave & Kind Books: 722 W. College Ave., Decatur, GA 30030
- Coffee Bar Atlanta: 1602 LaVista Rd., Atlanta, GA 30329