Partners

By: Jeannine Herron, et al. In this overview, learn how early literacy benefits from both print-to-speech and speech-to-print instruction, creating connections in the brain that link new knowledge about the alphabet to what children already know and are continuously learning about words. Introduction Recently there have been many discussions among ...

BookSpring is proud that our roots come from Reading Is Fundamental, the national program headquartered in Washington DC.  In addition to being a continuing funder to BookSpring through the Books for Ownership programs, they watch news and trends, such as The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which showed recently ...

New ways of gifting "forever" books BookSpring has continued to deliver books through partnerships with elementary schools, childcare centers, and clinics throughout the pandemic.  In order to help reduce the COVID slide and keep young readers motivated, we are customizing the way we make our book distributions through our longstanding ...

Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development. Books in the home and reading together can strengthen parent-child relationships during a critical period of development. BookSpringGo programs partners with community-based organizations that work with children and families to provide early literacy programs. We target families living in ...

Amidst a great amount of change and uncertainty throughout the current public health crisis, we’d like to shine a spotlight on one of our partners who has gone above and beyond to serve and meet the immediate needs of Texans: H-E-B. Last year, BookSpring and H-E-B partnered together to bring ...

by Emily Ball Cicchini, Executive Director This coming "hindsite is 20/20" year promises to be landmark one for BookSpring and for all the partners and families with children we serve. Wouldn't it be great if we could know now what we'll know in the future? Well, we can't! The best ...

BookSpring is proud to be a partner in literacy with BookPeople. BookPeople has been the leading independent bookstore in Texas since 1970. Located in the heart of downtown, BookPeople has been voted best bookstore in Austin for over 15 years. BookPeople was voted Bookstore of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly ...

It is no mystery that summer break can result in an exponential loss of academic skills or the “summer slide.” Research conducted by John Hopkins’ sociology Professor Karl Alexander shows that low-income youth suffer significantly from a loss of academic skills over the summertime. The losses pile up contributing to ...

It is never too early to share books with your baby. Reading to babies immerses them in sounds, rhythms, and rhymes building language and early literacy skills. Books are also a crucial bonding tool for caregivers and their newborns. Through the Rx programs, we partner with healthcare providers to prescribe ...

Sarah Rasmussen has been a children's librarian for six years. As the librarian at Reilly Elementary, Sarah works to constantly engage the community in and around the school in the joy of reading. Her love of kids, books, and introducing students to the excitement of getting lost in a book and ...

With the 20 Books by 2020 initiative under way, the need for books to distribute through our programs with healthcare (Rx), education (Ed), and community (Go) partners. It is these partnerships that allow us to reach children and families in need across Central Texas. Two of our greatest supporters in ...

The mere presence of books in the home creates a culture of learning that translates to a more prosperous future. Books allow children to explore the world at their own pace and develop their own interests. Print rich homes cultivate the language, social-emotional, and interpersonal skills needed to prosper and ...

by Emily Ball Cicchini, Executive Director September, 2018: We here are BookSpring have announced a big audacious goal: to get 20 high quality children's books in every Central Texas homes. This vision is being driven by social science research that shows a statistically significant correlation between the size of home ...

Atlassian is our pick for the Volunteer Spotlight! Atlassian is an Australian enterprise software company, that specializes in products for collaboration and product development. They opened doors on their Austin location in 2014. The magnificent employees of Atlassian began their involvement with BookSpring as a sponsor for our annual Read-A-Thon ...

Over Half of Austin Children Reading on Mobile Devices A wide body of research consistently shows that reading is one of the most important indicators of personal and professional success, and yet, historically we have known very little about why children and families choose to read. Now, a new reading ...

By: Joel Gross Photos by Tyler Schmitt / The Mill Photography Studio At BookSpring we know one of the most critical areas in students’ early educational journey is stemming the tide of summer reading loss. More broadly, the summer also presents an added challenge to many parents as they strive to ...

Wow, what a difference! In May 2016, various organizations partnered with us at Forbes Child Inc. in order to bring new life to our lobby. The vision of our lobby became the vision of not only one person, but a collaborative inclusive one with our staff and families in mind ...