“It takes a village to raise a child. That’s exactly what we need. More importantly, that’s what the children need. The children need adults, college students, teachers, retirees and other community members to pull together to ensure their lives are as enriched with words as the next. There are many ways to get involved.”
Words on Wheels, Inc. will initially focus on serving the Lake County area in the communities of:
- Waukegan
- North Chicago
- Zion
Future expansion is expected in more Lake County areas soon.
**Sources: United Way of Lake County, Americas Edge, Rand Corporation and the National Institute for Early Education Research.
- Directly impact the culture in at risk families
- By increasing the early childhood literacy skills in lower income infants and toddlers, the long term effect could be a decrease in crime, violence, abuse, and other lingering issues in our society.
- Provide a program to screen and train volunteers on infant, toddler and childhood literacy skills. Our focus is infants and toddlers.
- Coordinate visits to local child care centers, transitional housing facilities, Head Start centers, and other locations with low to moderate incomes and underserved children.
- Bring books, stories, songs and interactive play to inspire a lifelong love for reading and language.
- Give the children in the lower income areas the same attention and opportunities as the children in the more privileged areas.
Words on Wheels, Inc. bring the volunteers to infants and toddlers at:
●Local child care centers
●Transitional living facilities
●Head Start centers
●Family Child Care
The volunteers bring the words to the kids.
We work to inspire a lifelong love for reading and language using:
- stories
- books
- songs
- interactive play
Our curriculum has been developed by an early childhood professionals with over 30 years experience in the field. Significant research has been made in infant and toddler brain development with proven ways to produce early literacy skills. Research in infant and toddler brain development has proven that 85% of development occurs before the age of 5.
By doing our part to increase childhood literacy, our hope is to directly impact the future of our society. The challenges from the for at risk families come from difficulty in being successful in school and depleted resources..
It’s our goal that with our efforts and the efforts of a number of other organizations working towards the same goal, we will be able to overcome these obstacles. We envision a future where this vicious cycle is stopped. It’s a future where we can give all children the same opportunity to succeed.
Very young children who are talked to, sung to, and read to have a much higher academic success rate in elementary school.
- Incoming kindergartens who can’t print their name - 53%
- Kids who will end up in jail or on welfare by the end of the 3rd grade – 66%
- Percentage of homeless children – 30%
- Number of kids who have trouble reading and writing will dropout of high school in the next year – 1,000
- State prison inmates who are high school dropouts – 75%
The numbers show there is huge epidemic in Lake County with early childhood illiteracy. The epidemic doesn’t stop there. The early childhood illiteracy problem leads to many other problems like more people on welfare, crime, violence, teen pregnancy, and the worst the continued cycle of all these societal issues.
The hope and solution lies in addressing these challenges early in a child’s life. It all starts at the beginning. If we can increase the early childhood literacy skills among the Lake County children, especially for at risk families, we can significantly change the next generation.
If a child has the skills to be ready to read and write by the time they enter kindergarten, they will be more confident in school. Confidence is school leads to better students. More enthusiastic students lead to more high school graduates. More high school graduates lead to more college students. More college students leads to less welfare and less crime.
That’s the hope. Start in the beginning to impact the much bigger picture.
With your help and that of many other organization we can influence what we all wish for - a better world for our children. We can influence levels of poverty, we can influence levels of crime, We can support an increased standard of living. Today is the day we all need to make a difference.
