Can simple text messages for parents boost reading scores for kids?

Three elementary schools in an after-school reading pilot program saw significant increases in the percentage of students reaching third-grade level literacy benchmarks. The Mississippi-based curriculum takes a data-driven approach to improving kids' reading skills, allowing teachers to craft individual interventions for specific students. The program, which is uniquely hands-on and boasts a small student-to-teacher ratio, also includes lessons that actively engage parents in the process in order to reinforce reading skills and practice activities at home.

Mounting evidence points to an increasing disparity in the educational achievements of those children who attend and complete pre-school, and those who do not. The Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program is a national home visiting initiative for low-income families that is working to bridge the gap. They provide learning curriculum, guidance, and parenting support for disadvantaged families in their homes, so that their children can be equally prepared to succeed in school.

Building on an early-childhood initiative, the Monadnock district was able to quickly respond and provide childcare services for employees of the Monadnock district by partnering with the YMCA. The response was an effort to prevent employees from missing work during the pandemic due to lack of childcare. 32 children enrolled in the program. “I think of Impact Monadnock as a real beacon of the way a community can come together around early childhood [education].”

In the Academyati model used in Qatar, teachers reject the traditional memorization model and personalize "academic journeys" for students that emphasize the development of empathy and relationships.

Boulder Valley schools are working with Latino parents to create networks of community support, feedback, and insight about the success of Latino children in the district. Parents are working with the school district to make sure stereotypes and racial bias aren't limiting their children from receiving food services and quality education that fit their needs.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, philanthropist George Kaiser has invested heavily in Educare, a year-round early learning program, and wraparound services, such as prison-diversion and family-based programs, with the belief that early child development can break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and address the opportunity gap before it widens. The Christian Science Monitor is following three mothers with children enrolled in Educare to show how the experiment in philanthropy is playing out on the ground.

Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP) works with Philadelphia families to improve outcomes for low-income children. By bringing educational materials and lessons into the home, the service providers, who are all from the communities in which they work, offer parents structure and tips to prepare their children to begin formal schooling.

In Denmark, one in ten preschools are held outdoors. First started in the 1950s, "forest kindergartens" improve students' concentration, social skills, and creativity, according to advocates. Skeptics have voiced safety concerns and worries that such an approach doesn't prepare students for today's tech-centric world.

A New York program bridges the word gap—the disparity in children's vocabularies—for children of the incarcerated by allowing their fathers to record themselves reading stories.

Through programs across the country, nurses, social workers, or trained mentors offer support to new or expectant parents, imparting skills to help them become better teachers for their children. Through regular home visits with the families, these programs are working to close an achievement gap between rich and poor children that starts as early as just nine months into a child's life.