STARS

STARS is dedicated to improving the early literacy landscape for children. 

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These are key facts about early literacy:

• Language and literacy skills begin developing at birth and are fostered by parents and caregivers.

• Nationally only 36.9% of babies are read to daily by their parents. Families in households with low incomes are 16.8% less likely to read daily to infants than households above low income.

  • Data from THE STATE OF BABIES YEARBOOK:2022, published by ZERO TO THREE, Think Babies

• Enriched home learning environments and parent involvement are critical for children from low-income families to succeed in school.

• Children who do not read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers. 

• Research supports the national reading proficiency problem: 82% of fourth graders from low-income families and 84% of students who are from low-income families and attend high poverty schools fail to reach reading proficiency. 

• Research supports the price of failing to close the reading gap for children from low-income families is too steep in economic, social and human terms for this country to continue to pay.

  • Data from Early Warning Confirmed, A Research Update on Third-Grade Reading – written by Leila Fiester, published by The Annie E. Casey Foundation (2013)

• Post-pandemic math and reading test score results show greater divergence between students of low and high income levels. “Students at the bottom are dropping faster”. 

  • “Pandemic Sets Schools Back Two Decades” New York Times article by Sarah Mervosh 9/1/2022

 

These are key facts about Schenectady’s early literacy profile:

• Approximately 9,031 children under age 5 live in Schenectady County, and approximately 6,000 of those children lack consistent regulated childcare.

  • Data from Brightside Up’s Restoring the Grid (2019)

• Across Schenectady County approximately 1,856 children under age 5 live in poverty with the greatest concentration residing in Schenectady City (1,300). According to data for Schenectady County, 70% of all County children under age five who live in poverty, reside in the City of Schenectady.

  • Data from SCAP's 2021 Schenectady County Community Needs Assessment

• 77% of Schenectady City School District third grade students tested in the ‘21-’22 school year were not reading at proficiency.

  • Data from NYSED https://data.nysed.gov/

• According to survey data taken from recipients of STARS books, 98% of respondents agree they are reading more to their children since gaining access to STARS books.

 

There is a criticality to early literacy in the long-term economic health of Schenectady. It will take the entire village to solve the early literacy problem and STARS is working to bring the stakeholders together to find solutions.