RIF - Reading is Fundamental
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RIF and its local volunteers bring some of America’s neediest children stimulating reading activities and challenges, with new books to choose and keep at no cost to them or their families. Nationally, RIF focuses highest priority on the neediest children, from infancy to age 8. RIF has been motivating kids to become strong readers for more than thirty years. Locally, RIF serves around 1,950 children a year through a network of over 100 volunteers. We distribute about 9,750 books a year. Through the end of the 2008-2009 school year, we have distributed more than 234,000 books since our inception and have served more than 42,000 Nashville children. History of RIF in NashvilleRIF is the oldest literacy group in the Nashville area. This is our 34th year to serve Metro Nashville schools and we are proud of it! Currently, each of our volunteers visits an elementary school once a month during the school year, reads to a class and on five of the visits allows each child in the class to select a book to keep for his or her very own. Thus, at the end of each school year, each child has five free, new books to enjoy at home with his or her family. RIF Nashville, began in 1975 as a RIF Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County school project. It is based on the principle that voluntary reading is the path to proficiency. A locally funded pilot project was run for three years in three Metro schools. With the continued support of the community through volunteers the program has expanded to reach more and more needy children. Since its inception, twenty-eight schools in Metro have benefited from the RIF program. Currently, RIF concentrates its efforts in nine Title I schools where the need is the greatest. Many of teachers say that their students would not own any books were it not for RIF. Locally, RIF serves around 1,950 children a year through a network of over 100 volunteers. We distribute about 9,750 books a year. Through the end of the 2006-2007 school year, we have distributed over 230,000 books since our inception and have served over 42,000 Nashville children. Why is the RIF program successful?RIF gets children into books with a simple device: It lets them choose books that interest them from a wide variety of paperbacks and lets them keep these books as their own. Freedom of choice and pride of ownership are paramount in RIF’s success. Once the children begin to read, they find that books are fun and great companions. RIF provides the key elements that dozens of major studies identify as critical to children’s reading development: 1) Books in the home, 2) Parental involvement, 3) Leisure reading, 4) Motivation to read, and 5) Reaching children early. A study of RIF by the General Research Corporation for the U.S. Department of Education noted that RIF coordinators reported that: • RIF represented the only source of books that most children had in their homes. A national survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked RIF as one of the nation’s 20 “most credible” charities. Parenting magazine cited RIF as one of the 15 charities that “really help kids.”
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It is proven that children who have books in their homes and read for fun become better readers. That is why Reading is FUNdamental, Inc. (RIF) was established. RIF, the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit children’s literacy organization, was founded in 1966 by Mrs. Robert S. McNamara on the idea that reading can be a real pleasure for children if they have books of their own. Her goal in setting up the program was to make books and reading a way of life for future generations of Americans.