Closing the quality gap in early learning, one child at a time

Through our direct service with children, Jumpstart is committed to creating broad, sustainable change in early childhood education. While our approach encompasses large numbers of volunteers, participants and partners, it works because our college students and community volunteers provide individualized attention to children who need it most. Our program is designed to help close the quality gap in early learning and to produce measurable results.

We already know that Jumpstart children build language, literacy and social skills at a greater rate than children who don’t take part in Jumpstart. Continual evaluation and research confirms that intensive and individualized tutoring and mentoring promotes crucial brain development and helps to build foundational skills that children need for success in school and in life. 

Real Challenges Statistics tell us that American children who are not reasonably proficient in reading and writing by third grade are at a greater risk of school failure. Facts like these help to explain why the Jumpstart program plays such a vital role today:
		Poverty is the single best predictor of a child’s failure to achieve in school, and about half of children from low-income communities start first grade up to two years behind their peers
		By age four, the average child in a professional family hears about 20 million more words than the average child in a working-class family, and about 35 million more words than children in welfare families
		By the fourth grade, more than half of white and Asian American children cannot read at grade level. More than 80 percent of Latino, Black and American Indian children cannot read at grade level by fourth grade
		Over 29 percent of workers in the United States are functionally illiterate and innumerate
		Of 50 children having trouble learning to read in kindergarten, 44 of them will still be having trouble in third grade
		Only 16 percent of children in officially low-income families score in the upper range, while 50 percent of children from the most affluent families score in that same upper range

Real Results Studies find that well-focused investments in early childhood development yield high public, as well as private, returns. Jumpstart has helped to promote these outcomes by expanding steadily since 1993. During the 2009-2010 school year, we are:
		Serving nearly 13,000 preschool children
		Recruiting and engaging 3,500 college students and community volunteers
		Giving more than one million hours of service to preschool children in low-income communities
		On October 8, 2009, we reached more than 2 MILLION readers globally through Jumpstart's Read for the Record

Learn more
		Evaluation [PDF]
		Research [PDF]
		Information Center