Room to Read

Room to Read focuses on two of the most significant issues in developing countries where extreme poverty and other barriers prevent children from pursuing an education: literacy and girls’ education.

The Literacy program increases access to culturally-relevant, age-appropriate reading materials; increases the effectiveness of teachers to teach literacy skills; and improves the school environment to be more conducive to learning. To increase the amount of culturally-appropriate reading material, Room to Read trains local authors and illustrators on themes and techniques for younger readers and commissions books from local publishers, thereby fueling a local publishing industry. In addition, Room to Read has established more than 16,000 school libraries and trained over 40,000 teachers on how to engage students with reading material, including lesson plans, book reports, and read aloud sessions.

Under the Girls’ Education programme, Room to Read provides financial assistance and mentoring through a network of social mobilizers, who act as role models, counsellors, and advocates for girls. Girls enrolled in the programme also attend life skills camps and workshops to develop needed skills in school and after graduation, such as self-awareness and empathy, communication and interpersonal skills, decision- making and problem-solving, critical and creative thinking, and coping with stress and emotions. The Girls Education programme cumulatively reached 25,000 girls in 2013 and maintains a 95% retention rate.

To date, the organization has benefitted the lives of nearly 9 million children. Evaluation studies in multiple countries demonstrate that children in schools that have Room to Read programmes read for leisure 20-30% more on a weekly basis than children in government schools.