Feed Their Read: Why Access to the Right Books Builds Better Readers

Please join us this Friday morning when our guest speaker will be Lea Anne Borders explaining why access to the right books can build better readers. By fourth grade, 63% of children in the U.S. are reading below grade level. These children will continue to struggle in school, and are four times more likely than their peers to leave high school without a diploma. Success in reading, like many endeavors, can be tied to practice. The more you read, the better you get at reading. So the issue becomes one of motivation.

  Decades of research have identified three key levers that motivate children to read – personal relevance, leveling, and choice. Bookelicious, a new e-commerce company founded by Lea Anne Borders, is designed to put these levers into practice. At bookelicious.com, children can easily find and purchase titles that best match their interests and reading abilities, selecting from a professionally curated collection of great books for kids.               

  Unfortunately, in underserved communities, the issue of motivations compounded by lack of access to books, contributing to the achievement gap between students from high and low income families in the U.S. To address this issue, Bookelicious not only sells books, but it also helps children find the titles they choose in local libraries.                              

  However, borrowing your favorite book from the library isn’t as impactful as owning it. To better meet this need, Lea Anne and Judy Koch, Executive Director of the Bring Me a Book Foundation, are piloting the idea of partnering with local nonprofits to adopt Title I classrooms and underwrite the books chosen by students using the Bookelicious platform. The hope is that, by giving disadvantaged children ownership of the right books, they can help close the achievement gap.           

  In addition to her work at m Bookelicious, Lea Anne has served as an advisor to Silicon Valley startups since 1998. Previously, Lea Anne was general counsel for My Wire, Inc., an online media retail startup, and a partner at Cooley LLP, a Silicon Valley based law firm known for its expertise in the areas of venture capital and technology transactions. Lea Anne holds an MS in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a JD from the University of California Hastings College of the Law, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She also serves as a board member for non-profits Bring Me a Book Foundation and LitLab.