at the center and moving forward from there, basketball pros promoting literacy say, there’s room for some guarded hope. It’s necessary, because the research is in and the results are not encouraging. A child from a low-income family enters kindergarten with a listening vocabulary of 3,000 words, while a child of a middle-income family enters with a listening vocabulary of 20,000. Two-thirds of American classroomshave fewer than 50 children’s books and almost 60 percent of childcare centers buy less than one book perchild per year. These alarming statistics are why current and former National Basketball Association (NBA) players have joined the effort to help motivate and encourage young people to develop life-long love of reading. With partners such as Disney, Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and Scholastic, the NBA andits players work to help promote reading by conducting programs that give children greater access to books, technology and learning materials. NBAplayers reach millions of children and their families through public service announcements, reading programs and other initiatives as part of the NBA’s Read to Achieve Program. Current and former NBA and WNBAplayers and family members put in countless volunteer hours and donate books and read- Nuggets reads to kids during a Denver Nuggets Read to Achieve event at the Pepsi Center in Den- ver, Colorado. ing materials to schools and community organizations all over the country. A new initiative from the NBA, Reading Is Fundamental and the Foot Locker Foundation, the National Reading Corner Program, will also create more than 100 reading corners at schools and youth organizations around the country. Each center gets 500 new children’s books, along with posters, bookmarks, Reading Scorecards and reading guides. Thousands of children will have increased exposure to quality children’s literature, an inviting and fun environment to read in and the ability to bring home books and enhance family involvement in a child’s reading activities. For more information, see www.nba.com/community.
