
Unlocking the Insights: 2024 Texas Reading Survey Highlights
In August and September 2024, BookSpring conducted its annual Texas Reading Survey to understand family reading habits, book ownership, and school engagement. With 752 responses from parents of children 12 and under, this year's findings shed light on significant trends, challenges, and opportunities for promoting book access and literacy across ...

Texas Ranks 50th in Family Reading: A Call to Action
Here at BookSpring, we're all about big dreams and even bigger hearts. But there's one statistic that hits close to home and demands our attention: Texas ranks 50th in the nation for the percentage of children under age six whose families read to them every day. In a state known ...

Digital Reading Update: B3 Book App Boosts Family Reading Time
We’re excited to share some fantastic news: our B3 Books app has shown an impressive increase in engagement, with families now spending an average of 15 minutes per session. This boost in reading time together is not just a win for the app but also a significant step forward in ...

Screen Time and Digital Books: Nurturing Reading in a Digital Era
In our digitally saturated world, children encounter screens at an unprecedented rate, engaging with videos, ads, and games during unsupervised "screen time." Meanwhile, a different digital realm exists: that of "digital books," where parents actively participate in reading text and image-based materials with their children. How do these two realms ...

Addressing the Urgent Need for Reading and Literacy Supports in Texas
The state of Texas grapples with significant challenges in literacy and education, particularly among low-income, black, brown, and rural children. With nearly 6 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, it is crucial to delve into specific statistics that illustrate the pressing issues related to literacy rates, educational resources, and ...

The Power of Home Libraries: Closing the Achievement Gap Through Book Gifting Programs
In March 2023, Scholastic released a groundbreaking white paper titled "Home Libraries," which highlights the transformative potential of home libraries in closing the achievement gap. This blog post explores the key findings of Scholastic's publication and emphasizes the role of book gifting programs, such as those offered by BookSpring, in ...

Print-to-Speech and Speech-to-Print: Mapping Early Literacy
By: Jeannine Herron, et al. In this overview, learn how early literacy benefits from both print-to-speech and speech-to-print instruction, creating connections in the brain that link new knowledge about the alphabet to what children already know and are continuously learning about words. Introduction Recently there have been many discussions among ...

2022 Survey Shows Troubling Drop in Print Books at Home
Parents and educators alike need timely information about how reading today may be different than it was in the past. In 2022, the pandemic, economic stress, and extreme weather events have all put stress on families with children and how they fit reading practices into their daily lives. To address ...

New Research Links Book Giveaway Programs to Early Childhood Literacy
By Jayme Carrico Studies have found a child’s access to books plays a significant role in early childhood literacy. One recent study found that providing access to books, book giveaway programs encourage reading time between parents and children, increase a child’s overall interest in reading, and advances a child’s early ...

Exploring the 2019 Central Texas Reading Survey
BookSpring’s 2019 Central Texas Reading Survey offers insight into the state of reading in Central Texas and early literacy efforts in our community. This survey provides valuable information about the reading habits of families in Central Texas, while raising many interesting questions about the state of reading in the region, ...

Summer Reading Enriches Future Academic Success
It is no mystery that summer break can result in an exponential loss of academic skills or the “summer slide.” Research conducted by John Hopkins’ sociology Professor Karl Alexander shows that low-income youth suffer significantly from a loss of academic skills over the summertime. The losses pile up contributing to ...

Reading is Complex: And That’s Good!
by Emily Ball Cicchini, Executive Director Reading isn't simple. I am noticing more discussion lately in education circles about reading and complexity. By complexity, we mean both the quality of the text that is being read, and what is going on inside the minds and hearts of the people who ...

Highlights from 2018 The Central Texas Reading Survey
BookSpring’s Central Texas Reading Survey offers intriguing insights into the state of reading in Central Texas, and the implications for early literacy efforts in our community. We launched the assessment to provide you with real-time statistics that measure reading habits among parents and caregivers with children under the age of 12. Low Book ...

20 Books at Home Significantly Impacts Success
by Christy Anderson The Number of Books at Home Impact a Child’s Educational Success It has long been asserted that parents’ education is the primary factor in predicting the future education level of a child. But in a long-term, worldwide study published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and ...

New Study on Book Gifting for Babies
By Emily Ball Cicchini, Executive Director The tradition of book gifting has been studied scientifically by researchers in education and healthcare for many years. Practices include bookmobiles, little free libraries, and other early literacy interventions and social programs at the regional, national, and global levels. We at BookSpring look to ...

Targeting Summer Slide with New Program
By Joel Gross Photos by Tyler Schmitt / The Mill Photography BookSpring is excited to announce the launch of Summer Success, a new full-scale program designed to address the widespread drop in reading skills that occurs in economically disadvantaged elementary students over the summer. Research has shown that over 80 percent ...

Results of the 2017 Central Texas Reading Survey
Over Half of Austin Children Reading on Mobile Devices A wide body of research consistently shows that reading is one of the most important indicators of personal and professional success, and yet, historically we have known very little about why children and families choose to read. Now, a new reading ...

New Reading Program Shows Promising Results
BookSpring has just completed preliminary evaluation of the pilot Read For Success program in Central Texas and the results are very encouraging. The program is designed to reduce the summer slide, a phenomenon where children’s academic skills, including reading, decline during the academic year break. According to Reading Is Fundamental ...

Troubling New Study on Reading Aloud
by Mateo Ibranji 54% of parents do not read aloud A new survey shows how far we have to go to encourage parents to read aloud to their children. Conducted by Read Aloud 15 Minutes, a national campaign to increase reading aloud at home, the report shows that fewer than half (46%) ...

Reading to Young Children Makes Lasting Impact
by Christy Anderson It makes sense: the more a child reads, the better a child gets at reading. But studies show that being read to is just as critical to a child’s growing literacy and language development, even in very young children, including infants and toddlers. Even Children Who Can’t ...