Interview With Reading Is Fundamental’s Jennifer Moone, VP of Marketing & Partnerships
by Brian Feinblum
This post originally appeared on the Book Marketing Buzz blog and was reposted on the RIF blog with permission from the organization. Find the original post here.
1. I remember watching Reading Is Fundamental commercials on TV as a kid. I love the work that you have been doing for nearly six decades. Please tell us what RIF actually does to help increase literacy amongst children.
It’s so nice to hear that Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) is fondly remembered from our days on TV with PSAs from Carol Burnett to Ed Asner to Shaquille O’Neill. Today, RIF is still committed to the same mission and continues to drive local literacy impact across the country. As the nation’s leading children’s literacy nonprofit, RIF brings books and reading resources to children, inspiring the joy of reading and putting children on a path to reading proficiency that sparks imaginations and possibilities. We work with our partners to change the trajectory of the literacy crisis by ensuring that every child has the opportunity to learn, discover, and achieve their full potential.
RIF’s program and content offerings support educators, families, and students, focusing on book ownership solutions, continuous literacy support, and reading engagement. Giving children choice and access to new, age-appropriate books to take home and own is positively tied to reading behaviors including motivation, frequency, and engagement—which lead to enhanced reading and writing performance, language development, and academic outcomes.
2. Which resources can you share that parents, guardians, and caretakers can use to help their children develop a love of reading?
RIF is committed to partnering with parents and families to help them foster a love of reading for their children. We provide free, research-backed and standards-aligned resources that help children expand learning and engagement with the books they read at home and at school.
Literacy Central is RIF’s online destination, offering over 30,000 free resources tied directly to the books children love and teachers turn to every day. Literacy Central offers curated book collections with a wide selection of diverse books by diverse authors, literacy activities including games and puzzles, monthly activity calendars, read-aloud videos, and much more.
We also offer key initiatives to drive reading engagement: our Rally to Read and Summer Reading programs. Rally to Read is our annual 6-month initiative anchored on monthly themes, read-alouds by popular children’s authors and illustrators, reading activities, a pledge to read 100 books, and a book giveaway sweepstakes for educators. In addition, RIF kicks off a new summer campaign annually to provide families with compelling reading content to help their child read all summer long, combating the very real declines in reading frequency and motivation that happen during these months.
3. If more money can be put into improving literacy, where would you recommend it be spent?
Reading Is Fundamental believes deeply in the need to invest in children’s literacy to build a nation of lifelong readers. RIF’s model focuses on the joy of reading and power of books to support reading outcomes for students. Our model integrates the joy of reading that drives reading motivation, frequency, and engagement - into the Science of Reading - focused on language comprehension and word recognition. By intentionally integrating joy with the science of reading, we can have greater, measurable impact on reading proficiency and children's journeys to becoming lifelong readers.
4. Are other literacy organizations collaborating to ensure that together, they are meeting the literacy needs of children today?
We know that when we come together, we can have measurable impact for children and address the nation’s literacy crisis. Many like-minded nonprofits are collaborating closely to pull their levers and support educators, families, and students to tackle the many issues that feed into the challenges of our nations’ literacy landscape. RIF regularly collaborates closely with many of these organizations that each have an area of focus that can drive impact. With greater investment and coordination among these organizations, we can continue to make strides together to help students read and thrive.
5. Is something happening in society that is somehow stunting the development and growth of young readers? More specifically, why, with all of the resources out there, are reading scores stagnating or showing decline for the last two generations?
We recognize the complexity of the nation’s literacy crisis. Most notably, we see the far-reaching impacts of disrupted learning during the pandemic, compounded with the many other factors that can contribute to a student’s educational outcomes. Given these complexities, more attention and resources are needed to truly tackle the many issues that enable children to be successful, proficient readers.
6. What, if anything, is being done to help educate and inspire parents to be better readers or lovers of reading so that they are empowered to spend more time or money to help their children fall in love with reading?
Parents are the child’s first teacher. RIF focuses on empowering families with tools and resources (including free family-focused webinars and reading guides and tips) to build capacity, boost confidence, and grow skills that enable them to participate in and steer their child’s reading journey and help them inspire a joy of reading.
7. How do you work with educators to improve reading skills? What is the best way to teach reading? Do you offer resources for educators?
RIF’s approach focuses on partnering with educators to help inspire a joy of reading and build lifelong readers. RIF offers fee educator-focused webinars as well as comprehensive professional development opportunities to enhance instruction.
RIF's professional development framework is grounded in research on effective adult learning practices, emphasizing the importance of personalized, evidence-based support for educators. RIF’s comprehensive approach ensures that professional development is practical, collaborative, and aligned with research-based practices, supporting educators to enhance their instructional techniques and ultimately improve student outcomes.
In addition, for each of our RIF programs, we provide ongoing implementation and engagement support for educators to deepen impact through their RIF program implementation.
8. Does RIF endorse audiobooks as a way to aid reading development?
RIF is platform-inclusive. While we do not currently offer audiobooks as part of our program model, we believe deeply in reaching children where they are with reading material that appeals to them. As part of our Books for Ownership and Read for Success program models, we focus on book access, choice, and engagement with print books and in our Skybrary program, we offer an interactive digital library of nearly 1,000 eBooks.
9. How can one volunteer to help society raise healthy, happy readers?
We can all be part of the solution. RIF invites local literacy advocates to get involved by being a RIF Reader, Fundraiser, Book Drive Organizer, or Virtual Volunteer. It is through the work of volunteers across the nation that we are able to make an impact.