When families enroll their children in our early childhood programming, they know we are helping them raise enthusiastic readers. Our Raising a Reader partnership is an evidence-based program that fosters the parent-child connection through reading and promotes loving, supportive relationships and literacy skills. Through the program, our families develop home-based literacy habits that will help children succeed through every year of school.

At our Richmond Early Learning Center on Staten Island, 196 children and families are benefiting from the Raising A Reader program. Each week, children bring home a bright red book bag filled with award-winning books. On average, more than 100 high-quality age-appropriate books will rotate through children’s homes each program cycle, and we are lucky to not be doing this work alone.

This past week volunteers from BlackRock, the asset management firm, spent the afternoon packing Raising a Reader book bags for each child at Richmond Early Leaning Center. Volunteers also popped into our classrooms for story time and read books to youngest learners. With support from BlackRock we will be able to continue to foster rigorous literacy gains for children both in our classrooms and at home. We thank BlackRock staff for their commitment to raising readers across Staten Island.