Jumpstart's Read for the Record Campaign
At Pearson, we’re proud to be a founding sponsor of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record Campaign.
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Jumpstart’s Read for the Record Campaign gives young children and adults the chance to come together around the United States – and around the world – to share in the joys of reading. In addition to raising money for Jumpstart, the Read for the Record Campaign gives participants the chance to see for themselves the power of this great nonprofit organization, and, further. puts in participants’ own hands the power to help ensure that early education remains a national priority.
Jumpstart’s work with young children is essential: One-third of American children enter kindergarten developmentally behind their peers and without the skills necessary to succeed at grade level. This isn’t just a problem for these children and their families; according to education experts, it is an issue of national concern. That is why Jumpstart has created a way for every adult and every child across the country to raise public awareness about the early education gap that exists between income levels.
In 2007, record-breakers everywhere joined together on September 20th to Read for the Record. Close to 300,000 people registered to be part of the “official” world record. Pearson was proud – as we have been since the beginning of this national campaign – to underwrite the campaign’s official book, the Penguin Young Readers Group classic The Story of Ferdinand.
The campaign kicked off with First Lady Laura Bush appearing on the TODAY show as she read The Story of Ferdinand to children at the White House. TODAY hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, who wrote the foreword to the custom book, also read Ferdinand to children during the program, as did other guest celebrity readers. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings hosted a group of children in Ohio, while Pearson and Jumpstart sponsored a national event at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Pearson people hosted events with schools, libraries, museums, mayors, and governors, joining readers of all ages in breaking the world record. As was the case in 2006, when we kicked off Jumpstart’s Read for the Record Campaign with Penguin’s The Little Engine That Could, all proceeds from the sales of the special edition of The Story of Ferdinand benefited Jumpstart and its work with preschoolers from low-income communities across the country.
The Pearson Foundation donated more than 50,000 books to schools, teachers, and education partners, and contributed tens of thousands of books to Head Start and other early education centers. New this year, the Pearson Foundation matched online donations made during the campaign with corresponding donations of children’s books to at-risk children.
In communities around the world, Pearson people and businesses also supported and encouraged teachers and students to Read for the Record by:
- Working with teachers and district superintendents to highlight the importance and the power of reading. We donated books and created toolkits that made it easy for teachers to host reading events in their own classrooms.
- Inviting educational organizations like the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Education Association (NEA), Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the United Service Organizations (USO), and Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK) to take part in the one-day reading event.
- Hosting – together with the bookseller Follett – reading events in college bookstores across the country.
- Visiting classrooms and hosting reading events around the world on the special Read for the Record day.
In 2006 and again in 2007, more than 1,500 Pearson people from 40 U.S. businesses took part in Jumpstart’s Read for the Record celebrations. In 2007 we also welcomed Pearson 
people and communities from Cambodia to Argentina and from Mexico to South Africa. In communities around the world, we helped to organize reading events, visited schools and community organizations, and encouraged young people to create their own personalized ABC books based on the Pearson Foundation’s “Family Book Nights” program. Even better, thanks to Pearson’s participation, we helped to raise more than $1,000,000 to support and expand Jumpstart’s work with preschoolers from low-income families.
