There is a knowledge gap that prevents our children from achieving.
We can close that gap
Content knowledge and reading are inextricably intertwined. So what happens when our young students do not have the basic knowledge to understand what they read? The Knowledge Gap is real and has devastating effects on our children. The solution is introducing young readers to a variety of language techniques at an earlier age. -- this is in how it is presented, the solution is building knowledge
I'm Lauren Johnson, creator of the Jackrabbit Book series. As an educator for over 20 years, both in the classroom teaching English and reading, I have been in hundreds of classrooms across dozens of schools and seen the same destructive pattern. Students didn’t have language background knowledge of a plane to understand a math word problem or basic geography to grasp immigration patterns in Asia, African, or Alabama. Students who don’t know animals can’t grasp diverse habitats, the list goes on.
Without the core knowledge, they can’t make sense of what they read, and they can’t make sense of the world around them. Most curriculum focuses on reading skills, not building content understanding. Content, sentence structures, and common vocabulary are the building blocks for knowledge. While most non-fiction early reader books are written at the most basic level, students are not exposed to advanced sentence structures and vocabulary. Our books help solve that problem.
This series geared to young learners, ages 2-7, helps build core knowledge, introducing vocabulary, real-life scenarios, and learn complex sentence structure encouraging students to connect with the content. We keep the expectation bar high for all learners and tackle the Knowledge Gap problem head-on with these 5 goals:
improve educational outcomes
build content awareness
support critical thinking
increase complex vocabulary
even the equity field
We stand apart. By presenting content in this book series we give kids a head start to curriculum topics, like transportation, science, nature, the arts, US and world history, biology, and more.
We use sentence structures and vocabulary typically found in more advanced books By exposing students to transitional terms and sentence structures, we increase their reading comprehension and build writing skills for their future.
We level the equity field. This is my passion, and my calling as an educator. Underserved students struggle the most. We can close the education gap and change lives. We need your help. Will you help put these books on shelves from classrooms to bedrooms.