Lactation Access Transforming Communities in Hawaiʻi

Support and Scale Innovative Practices

Early Language and Literacy partners continue to gather as a community of practice under the umbrella of Early Childhood Action Strategy (ECAS) Team 6.

Aarika Riddle, Executive Director, Kristi Yamaguchi’s Always Dream Foundation:

Because of our involvement with ECAS Team 6, Early Language and Literacy Development, Always Dream has re-thought the way we use data in evaluating the effectiveness of our programs. Our work with Team 6 has caused us to think more deeply about ways to measure the effect of our programs on school readiness, which has led to the start of a pilot study with the Department of Education to better understand how keiki who have access to our Always Reading program as part of their pre-kindergarten experience perform on the new Hawai‘i Kindergarten Entry Assessment.

In 2024, Team 6 partners supported early literacy development across Hawai‘i in many ways:

Read To Me International convened their annual meeting and increased both their in-person and virtual programming to meet growing demand from families.
Read to Me International also held their annual conference in June 2024 featuring Mem Fox and Barney Saltzberg.
Through 2024, Kristi Yamaguchi’s Always Dream Foundation’s Always Reading program has reached over a thousand families and dozens of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in eight complex areas across Hawai‘i.
Pediatric practices working with the Reach out and Read (ROAR) program on Hawai‘i Island have now distributed over 7,000 books during well child check-ups, and the County Early Childhood Resource Coordinator office will expand the reach of the program with ARPA funding. Three pediatric practices in Maui County also have adopted the ROAR program.
Maui County has expanded the Imagination Library program to reach each zip code in the county, and on Molokai, all children 0-5 are enrolled in the IL program.
The Maui County Early Childhood Resource Coordinator has partnered with the bookmobile to register keiki for the Imagination Library program, and to deliver books to those keiki.

With support from the Omidyar ‘Ohana Fund and the CLSD early literacy grant, Family Hui Hawai‘i has offered early language development support with the LENA program, in partnership with Read to Me International, Rainbow Schools and HCAP Head Start. These efforts have reached families directly and have been employed in early learning classrooms.

Since its inaugural class in 2020, the LENA Start program has reached 200 families in Hawai‘i. Parents enrolled in LENA Start were provided with weekly coaching to increase the quantity and quality of their verbal interaction with their keiki.
Families had an 83% graduation rate, and families report that the program improved their understanding of language development, child development, and bolstered their confidence that they would be able to support their child’s school readiness.
Enrolled families increased the number of minutes they read with their keiki each day.

Almost 300 children have participated in LENA Grow classroom programming.

During the project, over 2,000,000 words and 200,000 conversational turns were recorded in LENA Grow classrooms.
Children who started in lower talk groups showed the most dramatic increase in conversational turns.
Teachers had a 100% graduation and retention rate, with 100% stating they would recommend LENA Grow to other teachers.
Some LENA Grow teachers doubled the number of conversational turns in their classroom.
Children who started the program in the lower-talk group increased from an average of 13 to 18 conversational turns per hour.