Early Literacy Project

Parental engagement is extremely important in a child’s learning process, school readiness and ability to have a successful school experience. Research shows that children who start school able to work at grade level are more likely to reach their full educational, social and life potential.

JCCA’s Early Literacy program provides essential intervention for students in Kindergarten, first, and second grades (6-8 years old) who are in JCCA foster homes, by identifying pre-reading deficits and engaging children and their parents in a six-month-long intervention program. The program incorporates in-home tutoring, pre-testing, parent/foster parent education, and post-testing and evaluation. Parents are trained in fun workshops that include books and literacy toolkits to take with them. They take what they learn in the workshops and incorporate the new techniques with their children at home. The children receive in-home tutoring focused on school readiness and literacy.

“My daughter has a traumatic brain injury, and it was so valuable to learn different ways to open my child’s eyes to reading.”

Valerie, Adoptive Mother

The Early Literacy Pilot is funded by a grant from the New York Community Trust.