Over a third of children in the U.S. enter school unprepared to learn. They lack the vocabulary, sentence structure, and other basic skills that are required to do well in school. Their lives are at risk. Children's experience with books plays an important role.
Many children enter school with thousands of hours of experience with books.
Their homes contain hundreds of picture books. They see their parents and brothers and sisters reading for pleasure. Other children enter school with fewer than 25 hours of shared book reading. There are few, if any, children's books in their homes. Their parents and siblings aren't readers.