The Louisiana Department of Education that the state had partnered with Scholastic to create a new state-funded book literacy program that’s designed to support Louisiana pre-k through 5^th-grade students who are not yet reading on grade level. The program was announced via this news release from LDOE., and it is named the Reading Enrichment and Academic Deliverables (READ), and it is designed to provide students who are eligible with the home delivery of free, age-appropriate, high-quality books and other engaging literacy resources.

Jenna Chiasson is the Deputy Superintendent for the Department of Education, and she spoke about the simple process to get started with the program by saying, “Schools are sending home flyers, and these flyers tell parents how to register. They’ll go to the website readla.scholastic.com. They’ll be able to select which type of books they’d like to receive and the books along with some family engagement resources, on how families can do activities related to what they’re reading. This is one of many initiatives that we’re doing right now to support early literacy and also to support families, so we’re excited about this new resource.”

It is estimated that approximately 150,000 students in the state are already eligible for the program, as per LDOE’s estimates. The Department’s release said that the purpose of the program was to give those students in need of the access to books and to also help them “discover the power and joy of reading through book ownership.”

By eliminating the barrier of book access, it is the hope of this program that students will be able to improve their individualized literacy to strive and get on grade level. This is also possible because families who are program-eligiblewill be able to select the topics of the books that they will be receiving. This ensures that students will be more inclined to benefit from the program if the books that they are receiving are of interest to them. Additionally, each book that is sent as a part of the program will also include a resource to assist the child to learn by aiding in building reading skills and confidence connected to each book. Because these resources are developed by Scholastic, the publisher of the books, it is virtually assured that these reading resources will be most beneficial for the students to individually connect with these books in the development of their reading goals.

This program comes while the LDOE has been placing an emphasis on improving childhood literacy in recent years as well as in the midst of Louisiana schools implementing several new strategies to better identify those students who need extra assistance and to provide more targeted support for those students.

Louisiana saw the literacy scores of kindergarteners fall from 2021-2022 when it was reported that only 39.2% of kindergarteners were reading on grade level when the previous year the rate was around 41.5%; although, all other grades from first through third saw improvements. Nevertheless, programs such as READ will only benefit Louisiana families and students as they are given free books delivered to their homes at no cost to them, fully allowing them to improve their individual reading levels and strive in their future educational endeavors.

This READ program was created as a popular result of ACT 395 of Louisiana’s 2022 Regular Session as well as other legislative appropriations. Families can see if their child registers, learn more about the program, and register their child at http://readla.scholastic.com/.

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