Results

Each year, our research has shown that the Nemours BrightStart! curriculum significantly improves the early literacy skills of pre-kindergarteners at risk for reading failure.

Based on our long-term follow-up, we also have evidence that most of those at-risk children make good progress with reading from kindergarten through third grade.

Since the beginning of Nemours BrightStart! in 2005:

• Tens of thousands of pre-kindergarteners have been screened on early literacy skills, with thousands of at-risk children receiving Nemours BrightStart! intensive educational instruction
• Two-thirds of participating at-risk children who have received the Nemours BrightStart! educational instruction have moved to the typical range in their reading readiness skills
• At-risk pre-kindergarteners completing the Nemours BrightStart! intensive educational instruction gain an average of 114% on their reading readiness scores

Nemours BrightStart! is helping to close the reading achievement gap
before children ever have a chance to fail.

The graph above shows two critical points:

• How far behind the at-risk children are in their early literacy
  skills at the beginning of pre-kindergarten (fall pre-test average scores)
• How much they close the gap and catch up after receiving the Nemours
  BrightStart! targeted instruction (spring post-test average scores)