Start Reading Now

Start Reading Now is a research-based program that addresses summer setback and the education achievement gap. The premise is that if you get young kids the right number of books, at the right time of life, for the right duration of time, you can have a bigger effect on reading scores than 3 years of summer school - at 1/60th the cost. We do that by sponsoring $50 vouchers for kids to buy 10 books each at the start of each summer after 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. This directly addresses the fact that low-income kids, on average, have less than one (yes, 1) book in their homes. At the end of our program, each participant will have chosen and built his or her own 30 book library. In 2018 we served over 5,000 kids in Minneapolis Public Schools at the 30 schools with at least 50% of the kids on free or reduced lunch. Since we started in 2014 we have allowed thousands of kids to buy a total of 125,000 new books, 10 at a time.