A case for
EDUCATION: Kindergarten Readiness I’m Jayne, from Columbus. I’m an executive assistant for an insurance company, but I have trained as a librarian and I love kids. So I volunteer at the library and the family center, doing story time for preschoolers. Studying library science got me into the whole area of early literacy. I know it’s important for kids to learn to read—it’s hard for them to succeed in school if they don’t master the concept early on. This really added a sense of mission to my wanting to be a librarian. Doing the story times keeps me learning. I like that I’m staying involved, and I’m helping kids. These kids have things to contend with that I never did, but they’re always curious to learn. I read to kids so that some day they’ll read on their own. That’s how I LIVE UNITED. COMMUNITY ISSUES: • An estimated 22.52% of children in Ohio under age 5 live in poverty. • Economically disadvantaged children enter kindergarten 1-2 years behind in language and other skills important to school success. • In professional families, children hear an average of 2,153 words per hour, while children in working families hear an average of 1,251 words per hour and children in welfare families heard an average of 616 words per hour. • Children in high-quality early care and education settings demonstrate greater language development, mathematical ability, thinking and attention skills and fewer behavior problems in kindergarten than children in lower quality settings. OUR RESPONSE: • In 2006-07, 2,250 young children in Franklin County received high quality early care and education services in United Way-supported early learning centers. • United Way’s Start Smart initiative has increased the local capacity of family care homes and early learning centers by more than 900 spaces. • With Start Smart’s assistance, 99 local early learning centers have achieved national accreditation, raising the accreditation rate in our community to 20%—more than twice the national average of 8%. • United Way supports Ready to Read, an initiative that in its first year has helped 1,200 parents/ caregivers and 100 teachers increase the early literacy skills of preschoolers. OUR INVESTMENT: In 2008-09, we will invest $4.2 million in programs that help children better prepare for kindergarten.