Promoting literacy, diversity, & intergenerational reading for kids’ success
Jacklyn Milton, M.A., CFLE
By Jacklyn Milton, M.A., CFLE
Administrative Director and Cofounder, Planting People Growing Justice Leadership Institute
In the U.S., more than 1/3 of fourth graders were reading below a basic level in 2022. Later, these children become more likely to drop out of high school, and high school dropouts are more likely to be arrested during their lifetime.
As my colleagues and I watched the nation’s reading crisis expand, we decided to take action, founding the nonprofit Planting People Growing Justice Leadership Institute (PPGJLI) in Minnesota, to end the school-to-prison pipeline and create new paths for success for all children by promoting literacy and diversity in books. By 2023, we had donated 17,000 diverse books and reached over 5,000 children through our school visits.
This work was a natural progression from my decades of service in early childhood education and K-12 literacy. As administrative director of PPGJLI, I oversee day-to-day organizational operations, and I use knowledge from Family Science and Family Life Education to support our curriculum development — including for our Leaders are Readers program, which brings diverse authors into schools to share their books, promote literacy, and spark interest in reading.
Reading can be a joyful hobby and a family activity. Yet often, parents say that their children do not like to read. I challenge them to help their children find the books that they want to read, and I’m proud when I see children reading books they enjoy.
It is tempting to wait and believe change will come at the wheels of inevitability, but what if the change in the world begins with you? I learned this important lesson as we founded PPGJLI. I could no longer afford to wait on the sidelines as the nation’s reading crisis persisted. I had to be the change that I wanted to see in the world.