A Memphis Challenge: Strengthen Early Family Literacy

September 23, 2010

Across Memphis and Shelby County, parents living in poverty are less likely to read to their children than are parents in poverty nationwide. Fortunately, even parents who struggle with reading can help their children become stronger readers and learners.

One of the most powerful ways parents can prepare children to succeed in school and in life is to introduce them to reading. Even parents who have a difficult time reading can tell their children stories and talk them through picture books. Researchers call this "dialogic reading." Children who are read to frequently are much more likely to become early readers and to have an easier time in school. This matters in Memphis, where 1 in 3 parents has a difficult time reading (MLC, 2007).

  • A child in a family living in poverty is likely to hear — and to learn — half as many words at home as a child in a middle-income family.
  • A three-year-old child raised by professional parents has a larger working vocabulary than a parent in a family below poverty (Hart & Risley, 1995).
  • Reading to children at an early age helps to put those children on a stronger pathway to school readiness and later life success.

Five simple ways to increase literacy among Memphis children and families in poverty:

  1. Share book time with children — it makes a world of difference. Parents are a child's first teachers and education begins long before children reach school.
  2. Use longer sentences (“try for five” words) when speaking with children.
  3. Support efforts to raise literacy levels in Shelby County. When parents enjoy reading, their children are more likely to enjoy it too.
  4. Encourage early childhood care and development providers to stress the importance of reading. Well-informed parents are better able to help their children from the earliest years.
  5. Sign children up for Books from Birth, the Shelby County free book program partnered with the Imagination Library. This is a great — and free — way to share the excitement of reading.