Jumpstart for Young Children
Jumpstart's mission is to work toward the day every child in America enters school prepared to succeed.
Every child deserves the chance to succeed, yet studies show that children from low-income neighborhoods are at a greater risk of school failure. Jumpstart recruits and trains college students and community volunteers to work with preschool children in low-income neighborhoods. Through a proven curriculum, these children develop the language and literacy skills they need to be ready for school, setting them on a path to close the achievement gap before it is too late.
Since 1993, Jumpstart has trained more than 20,000 college students and community volunteers, known as Corps members, to deliver its program to more than 90,000 preschool children nationwide.
Jumpstart's Program
Jumpstart is the only national supplemental preschool program of its kind, leveraging adult-child relationships to deliver a carefully designed curriculum that builds key language and literacy skills children need to succeed. Jumpstart sessions take place two days per week, for two hours each time. Corps members and children read core storybooks and participate in targeted and intentional activities based on these stories. Each session revolves around a core storybook and one book serves as the focus for two sessions
Major Campaigns
Jumpstart's annual campaign, Jumpstart’s Read for the Record, began in 2006 to raise awareness of the achievement gap and Jumpstart's work with preschool children in low-income neighborhoods. The children's book, The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper was re-released with an addendum for information about how best to read with children. Across the nation more than 150,000 children read the story, earning a spot in The Guinness Book of World Records. In 2007 the campaign was repeated with The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. In 2008 the book was Corduroy written by Don Freeman in 1968. The 2009 campaign book choice was the children's classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
On October 7, 2010, people all over the world came together and read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats to 2,057,513 children and broke the world record for the largest shared reading experience in history!
Since the campaign's inception:
- 5 Million Children have joined in the power of reading
- $6.2 million has been raised for Jumpstart’s yearlong program
- 800,000 books have been donated to children in low-income neighborhoods
Jumpstart's Read for the Record kicks off each year on NBC's TODAY Show. The Campaign has also seen much celebrity participation, including actress Mary-Louise Parker, singer Justin Bieber, Lo Bosworth from MTV's The Hills and from singer and actor, LL Cool J
Locations
Jumpstart serves in the following areas:
Omaha Nebraska, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, PA, Atlanta GA, Illinois, Seattle WA, San Francisco CA, Oakland CA, Los Angeles, CA, Kansas City, MO, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA [1]