Turning Pages | Sponsored by McCurley Mazda
Feature written by Cherami Freeman | Sponsored by McCurley Auto Dealerships
This feature has been modified post print-publication and updated March 2024
You may be familiar with The Children’s Reading Foundation of the Mid-Columbia, an organization that supports reading, literacy, and education for our local kids. But did you know that our local organization is the flagship chapter of The National Children’s Reading Foundation? The National Foundation and it's Mid-Columbia Chapter are both headquartered in Kennewick, Washington. They are both doing big, important things for kids and families in our community and afar.
Chapter 1: Today's Local Chapter
The Children's Reading Foundation has served thousands of local kids and families since its inception in 1996, focusing on children’s development from birth to third grade in ways that foster essential literacy, math, and social-emotional skills. It advocates Read Together 20 Minutes Every Day™ to children during formative early years.
In 1998, the local Foundation expanded to become a national organization with community-based reading foundation chapters and school-readiness parent engagement programs across North America. Affiliates are designated by their geographic location, such as Mid-Columbia (CRFMC), South Sound, WA, Glynn County, GA, and Appalachia, TN. Today Kristin Norell leads the National CRF as Chief Executive Officer from its offices, print shop, and warehouse in downtown Kennewick.
The magic happens for Mid-Columbia in a KSD portable classroom at Canyon View Elementary School with a team of three full-time, two part-time, and eleven seasonal employees. Its impact spans from Finley to the Tri-Cities, and West Richland, and from Mesa and Connell to Benton City and Prosser.
Executive Director | Leanne Luehrs-Purcell
CRFMC Executive Director Leanne Luehrs-Purcell is a former teacher. She oversees programs, fundraising, donor relations, business operations, grant writing and community book events across the Mid-Columbia. “One focus this year is to educate families about the benefits of physical connection that happens between a child and parent while reading,” Leanne says. “We’re encouraging parents and caregivers to put away distractions and read together.” CRFMC’s short-term goal is fostering family connections.
“We’re in a post-pandemic window, where I believe it’s crucial to remind families the importance of face-to-face, physical connection. To be intentional about being present with our children, and reading together 20 minutes a day is one of the most beneficial ways to do that. Read early, and often. We know that children from birth to five learn at a speed unmatched the rest of their lives.”
Rick Holmes, Bechtel Principal Vice President and CRFMC Board President says, “Parents and caregivers are the first teachers in a child’s life. Part of our vision is to encourage and educate those parents in raising a reader.”
CRFMC even has Former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis in its corner. In a feature video on its website read20minutes.com, the Tri-Cities native recalled how meaningful it was for his mother to read to him every night. “My earliest recollections were of my mother reading Swiss Family Robinson to me and just sitting on the edge of my chair waiting for it to start the next night cause I wanted to know what happened,” General Mattis recalls. “It opened the world to me and after a while, it got where I needed to read because I knew there were all these good things out there that I wanted to learn.”
“My family created a reading environment just by having books around all the time, because books reminded us all, especially as we grew older, that once you open someone’s mind it’s really hard to close it again,” General Mattis says. “If you want to put that child on the best path to their own success. It’s an investment in your children’s lives. If we can get reading 20 minutes a night to be pervasive in our community, we’re going to enable our young people to go a long ways in life.”
This feature was made possible by McCurley Mazda
Chapter 2: The Early Days
Co-Founder & National CRF Board President | Nancy Kerr
The Children’s Reading Foundation (readingfoundation.org) is the brainchild of five citizen founders: Nancy Kerr, Deb Bowen, Sandy Matheson, Lynn Fielding, and Paul Rosier. They hatched the idea on a Sunday afternoon at Lynn’s house after discussing how the community could support educators and families in their important role to ensure children learn to read early and well.
The group came together in 1995, after the 1993 Washington State Educational Reform Act, and six years ahead of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, to focus on what they believed was the root cause of academic failure in high school. “These laws required competency testing that focused on high schoolers, but the data demonstrated that high school performance could be predicted by third grade reading scores,” Nancy Kerr explains. Nancy is a former teacher, Kennewick School Board Director, and Crystal Apple awardee, and still serves as President of the National Foundation’s Board of Directors.
“In 1996, we had 41 to 43 percent of our freshman getting Ds or Fs in English, math, or science at the end of their first semester,” recalls Lynn Fielding, co-founder, long-time school board member, and tax attorney who helped bring data-driven analysis and decision-making to the Kennewick School District. “Many high school students were not performing well.” So, they dug a little deeper and looked back at middle and elementary school data.
Data indicated that a student who didn’t read at grade level by the end of third grade is more likely to struggle with other curriculum or drop out of high school. “Reading is the gateway skill to further academic learning. In kindergarten through third grade, children learn to read, and by fourth grade, students are expected to read to learn,” Nancy explains.
Co-Founder | Lynn Fielding with current Executive Director
Research indicates that parent involvement makes a huge difference in the reading ability and school readiness of a child. "We learned we needed to get parents involved with this. We created The Children's Reading Foundation to support reading,” Lynn says. “Some kids come to school with a 500-word vocabulary. They haven't been read to, they haven't been talked to, and they rarely catch up."
"The data is stark," Lynn says. "Birth to five is where you decide whether your child will start at grade level or behind." An achievement gap exists on the first day of kindergarten. Students who start ahead, typically stay ahead, year after year.
In the book Lynn and Nancy co-authored with Paul Rosier, The 90% Reading Goal, they explain that “daily time with books tells a child that ‘you are very important to me’ and ‘reading is a very important thing to do.’” They also explain that practice makes better: “Play catch with your children to develop ball handling skills; swim with them to develop water safety skills; read with them to develop reading skills.”
Lynn, Nancy, Bev Abersfeller, Steve Halliday, Marilee Eerkes and others were the initial architects and provided valuable assistance to CRF's nationally respected, locally loved, research-based school readiness program, READY! For Kindergarten®. READY! “empowers parents and caregivers to succeed in their role as children’s first and most influential teachers,” according to the Foundation website.
“We want to raise a nation of readers,” Nancy says. “Our mission is to literally change the future for countless children by giving them a strong reading foundation, thereby reaching their full potential in school and life.”
Chapter 3: If You Give a Child a Book
Rachelle Pyle Doty was a student at Kennewick High School when The Children’s Reading Foundation was formed. “Nancy Kerr was one of my favorite teachers. I signed up for all of her classes: home and family life, interior design, Careers in Education classes,” Rachelle recalls. “I wanted to be a teacher, but I became a parent instead.”
“Parents are our children’s first and most loved teachers,” Nancy reminds us. Nancy helped introduce Rachelle to Foundation programs, and Rachelle started reading to her son, Clayton, from his infancy. As a baby, he became a poster child with his mother for a reading campaign, “Los 20 minutos mas important de su dia” — The most important 20 minutes of your day, read with your child.
READY! helped open Rachelle’s eyes as a new parent. “It is important to give parents the tools they need. There’s so much being thrown at you,” Rachelle says. “Reading to my son, talking to him, and his learning to read early helped a lot with my son. He was an early talker. It helped his curiosity and gave him a head start on learning. My mom read to him all the time. He took to the activities and books.”
Clayton’s own son Krew was born in December 2023, and Clayton is already reading to him. “At his baby shower, we asked our guests to gift books with a note inside, instead of cards,” Clayton says.
“My grandson is only months old, and he already has quite a collection of books,” Rachelle says with a smile.
3 Generations of Doty Readers | (Left to Right) Clayton, Rachelle, Alexia and baby Krew
Chapter 4: The Little Reading Foundation That Could
The legacy of The Children’s Reading Foundation has stretched far beyond the pages written in the Mid-Columbia. The National CRF has a powerhouse board of directors and executive team that includes experts from New York to San Francisco in the disciplines of publishing, child development, education, business, media, advertising and non-profit. They are leading the charge to improve literacy among children from coast to coast.
With a presence in over 30 states and Canada, The National CRF chapters and programs are sponsored by school districts, businesses, civic organizations, faith-based groups, state agencies, and more. Learn more here.
From the 8000 square foot warehouse near downtown Kennewick, the local team of four lead the national organization and print, purchase, assemble, and distribute READY! kits and materials to the country. The distribution team is lead by Operations Director Chris Axelson who has operational experience from Samsung and LG in Korea to Amazon near Seattle.
“Our focus is to ensure gold star service for all of our customers regardless of size or location and whether they are ordering one book or 200 kits,” says Chris. “All families in all places deserve the same attention if we can help it.”
The National Team has formed partnerships to create their quality award winning learning kits from Melissa & Doug, Highlights, Scholastic, Carson Dellosa, Penguin Random House to name a few.
Examples of CRF programs supported from the Tri-City headquarters include:
A $6.64 million federal grant to serve 19 high-need school districts in Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Tennessee, Indiana, Maryland and Michigan. (2012-2016)
For over 10 years, The Mayo Clinic in Mankato, MI provided READY! for Kindergarten as an employee benefit for nearly 2000 employees, as did the Taylor Corporation with over 2500 employees. This included working with immigrant families learning English.
Memphis, TN school district provides 2000 families READY for Social-Emotional Growth as a support following Covid.
The Kentucky Department of Education used CRF’s Read Up materials for its summer reading outreach since 2019.
A new READY! for Reading program will be implemented in 39 sites across Idaho this summer (2024), an initiative of Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children (IAEYC). The Idaho AEYC is celebrating 10 years of using READY! this summer.
Foundation growth is not just geographical. During the pandemic, the National Foundation launched READY! for Kindergarten self-paced e-learning workshops in English and Spanish, and tens of thousands of parents have benefitted from online READY! programming.
The Reading Brain, a PSA produced non-gratis by McCann Advertising NYC, launched on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn in 2019 and still reaches families today with its messaging.
The READY! for Kindergarten parent programs also have targeted curriculums, including READY! for Math, READY for STEM, and READY! for Social & Emotional Growth. The READY! for Child Care and Preschool program aims to create continuity between a child’s learning at home and childcare or preschool.
The National Foundation’s latest initiative was redesigning its online Resource Hub, which provides free thematic resources for families and caregivers. Updated monthly, these resources include booklists, activity sheets, crafts, games, and reading tips to help meet the goal of Read Together 20 Minutes Every Day and Play With a Purpose™ for 10 minutes a day. Explore more here.
From a freeway underpass in Oklahoma City, to inner city Chicago; to the farmlands of Othello, WA and the hollows of the Appalachian Mountains, CRF delivers the joy of reading to youngsters.
If the message isn’t clear yet, here it is one more time: Read with a child 20 minutes every day.
CRFMC Programs
Books for Babies
Books for Babies provides a new bilingual board book and early reading information to each new mother after the birth of a child at local birthing centers.
CRFMC Books for Babies is sponsored by STCU, 3 River Community Foundation Trios, Kadlec, and Columbia Birthing Center
READY! for Kindergarten
Thrice-yearly workshops for parents of children 0-5, with learning resources, tools to play with a purpose at home, and books. Free to Kennewick residents. Offered in English, Spanish, Arabic, French, and Somali.
READ Up, Stop the Summer Slide
Summer learning loss is a real problem with a simple solution. The READ Up! program encourages children to continue to read throughout the summer months to help avoid summer-time reading loss that sets a child behind academically.
CRFMC partners with local organizations to provide literacy-based summer activities to kids, and includes free books, reading trackers, and events throughout the summer to pick up free books.
Team Read™
Trained community volunteers are partnered with students who need help developing their literacy skills. These coaches provide one-on-one mentoring twice a week during the school day. With the help of Team Read tutors, many students make great strides to catch up to the rest of their class before the end of the school year.
Available in select elementary schools in the Kennewick and North Franklin School Districts (list available). Even high school juniors and seniors can sign up to be Team Read mentors for class credit.
First Teacher Library
First-year K-3 teachers can apply for a grant of 75 books for their new classrooms.
Resolution Read
Resolution Read serves 600 local families with a free bag of 12 books delivered to their homes in January each year. Space is limited. Sponsored by Hanford Mission Integration Solutions.
R.O.A.R. (Rural Outreach for Access to Reading)
R.O.A.R. is our newest initiative that focuses on encouraging and empowering families in rural areas to read at home with their child. This initiative is born from our experience working in these vulnerable areas and routinely seeing the lack of opportunities and support for people outside of the Tri-Cities metro area.
As we began making the concerted effort to reach these areas (Prosser, Benton City, Patterson, Finley, Mesa, Connell, and Basin City), we saw that the need is great for these families and that we need to create a long-term solution.