Parents Find Kids' Literacy Parties as Easy as ABC

Officials in the Anaheim City School District think they have found a novel way to spread the word to adults about the importance of reading to their children.

A family invites neighbors, friends and relatives over. Everyone is treated to some practical tips on teaching toddlers their ABCs. At the end of the presentation, the host receives a basket of free goodies, including crayons, alphabet blocks, puzzles and other educational material worth about $100 in all. The guests then are invited to hold their own "Literacy Parties" if they want baskets.

"It is like a Tupperware party," said Elaine Coggins, the district's director of early childhood education, or "a pyramid scheme. Except there are no losers. Everyone gains."

Since the program started in January, Coggins' office has helped organize more than 25 of these parties with about a dozen people at each. The program has been so successful that it is quickly running out of baskets, Coggins said, and the district is looking for more funding.

"What we like to say here," she said, "is that we would like to blanket the city with literacy."

It is a simple idea for a complex challenge. Research shows that the frequency with which adults read to children is the most significant predictor of children's early literacy-related skills, such as recognizing shapes and sounds.

Yet a survey by UCLA and the Field Institute last year showed that nearly half of parents in California don't read to their young children daily.

Educators believe the rate is worse for low-income homes, where parents are struggling to get by and may have little education themselves.

Children from poor families in California are only half as likely as children from higher-income families to score at or above the national average in reading tests, according to an analysis of second-grade scores by Children Now, an advocacy group.

Anaheim elementary school officials are aware of the challenges. About 85% of the 22,000 students qualify for discounted or free lunches because of family income.

As in other urban districts, resources are scarce for classrooms, let alone for preschool or other readiness programs.

Proposition 10, the tobacco surcharge approved by California voters in 1998, has helped fund such programs around the state. In Anaheim, it has doubled registration in publicly funded preschool to 1,000 children. But the number is still woefully short of demand.