Programs & Impact: Building Home Libraries and the Motivation to Read

BookSpring offers a Continuum of Literacy Programs designed to reach children from birth through age 12 by building an active and supportive community of readers. We offer these programs:  Books Beginning a Birth, Books for Me, ReadWell, BookSpring Days, and Open Book. We reach children and families where they live, work, and play through professionals and community members that they know and trust.

Our programs are made possible through partnerships with over 300 organizations, agencies, nonprofits, schools, and healthcare organizations sharing the joy and benefits of books with children and families across Texas.  As an ongoing strategy, we focus on partners in three critical sectors of community-based childhood support: Education (BookSpringEd), Healthcare (BookSpringRx), and Community Organizations (BookSpringGo), in order to reach children and families who need books the most.

Our Impact:

A strong majority of children (85%) who receive books from BookSpring report a very strong intrinsic motivation to read immediately after our book gifting events. 75% of participating parents report reading together with their child at least once a day, which is three times the average of other parents in Texas.  And children participating in our early childhood programs are showing a significant increase in early literacy behaviors, including oral language proficiency. Our organization measures impact through a comprehensive approach, including a validated scale of motivation to read, a statewide poll of families with children under 12, and third-party evaluations. The validated scale assesses children’s enthusiasm for reading after book distribution events, while the statewide poll gathers insights on reading habits and challenges on an annual basis. Additionally, on five year, longitudinal third-party evaluation is currently measuring oral language proficiency and family reading behaviors with participating pre-kindergarten children, providing a holistic view of our programs’ effectiveness in fostering a love for reading and enhancing literacy skills.

Our Responsiveness:

We look for large scale change at the population level through the annual Texas Reading Survey.  We evaluate our impact through a variety of evaluation methods grounded in research-based models that focus on pre-literacy, reading, and language arts skills. We engage elementary students and the librarians, teachers, healthcare professionals, and parents of all children in our service area through the inspiration of being lifelong readers. See our Updates for recent reports on our progress and our annual reports for metrics of books distributed, children engaged, and hours of engagement across all our programs.