Click Here to read about how 2023 was a transformative year for DDR!
MISSION
Deliver impactful programming, training, and support to nurture reading and literacy skill development in the daily lives of children and those who champion them.
IMPACT STATEMENT
We are committed to improving the literacy skills of underrepresented children.
We build programs that deliver results. We are bold in our pursuit of positive outcomes.
We pursue partnerships wherever appropriate.
We approach decision-making with humility, and actively engage children, caregivers, employees, partners and other stakeholders in the process.
We service our stakeholders with honesty, transparency, and dignity.
We are committed to continuous improvement. We are curious pursuers of knowledge and innovation.
OUTCOMES
Our Play & Learn program has consistently helped to reduce the emerging literacy skill deficiency among young children by over 50%. In addition, a partner organization determined that our students score an average of 25% higher across five TS Gold Literacy Objectives than a control group. And we have been able to do this at a cost of less than $200 per child served. But we are not content with these results.
We continuously seek out new research and training to improve our program results. In the past year we’ve refocused on the Science of Reading, adding critical phonics and letter identification practice to each classroom session. We've also reviewed our read aloud selections to ensure that our chosen texts are engaging, prioritize diverse perspectives, and reinforce the SEL (social-emotional learning) components integrated into our weekly lessons.
We also know that our program has a positive effect on attitudes about books and reading, and have added Early Reading Attitude Survey questions to our assessments to begin measuring this impact.
Our Founder
We are honored to have our founder Dr. Shelly Senders on our Board of Directors as an Emeritus Director. His vision for thinking outside the box and recognizing reading as a key component of child health has been inspiring and leading the work for years.