EDC to Lead Evaluation of New National Early-Literacy Initiative
After more than two decades studying how educational media can strengthen children’s learning, Education Development Center (EDC) will serve as the independent evaluator of the Everyday Literacy Alliance, a new national early-literacy initiative led by Nine PBS.
The Alliance will bring together educational media, books, games, family resources, and community partnerships to strengthen literacy for children ages 2 to 8. By connecting these resources across the places where children live and learn, the initiative aims to create more opportunities for children to build foundational literacy skills.
“Our goal is to produce new evidence about what strengthens young children’s literacy,” said Shelley Pasnik, senior vice president at EDC and senior advisor to the research team. “We know thoughtfully designed educational media can support early learning. Now we have a tremendous opportunity to look closely at what happens when public media becomes part of the everyday relationships and experiences that surround a child.”
Building on two decades of research
EDC’s evaluation of previous public media initiatives has found that well-designed educational media can improve children’s learning, particularly when it is paired with meaningful interactions with trusted adults.
The Everyday Literacy Alliance will build on that foundation while asking a broader set of questions. While much is known about how high-quality educational media can strengthen children’s literacy, less is known about how media, family engagement, and community supports can best work together to create meaningful literacy experiences throughout children’s daily lives, and how those approaches can be implemented effectively across different communities.
The Alliance will develop and expand a range of literacy resources, including Fredasaurus Rex, a new multiplatform preschool series from Fred Rogers Productions; a national expansion of Nine PBS’s Teaching in Room 9; and Read it, See it, an interactive shared-reading platform. These resources will be paired with books, games, educator and caregiver materials, and community learning experiences.
Learning what works
EDC’s research will be embedded throughout the five-year initiative, helping partners learn and improve while building rigorous evidence about its impact. The evaluation will include formative research and co-design, studies of implementation across communities, and ultimately a randomized controlled trial examining the effects of Fredasaurus Rex media and family engagement resources on young children’s literacy.
The work reflects a simple idea: giving children a strong start takes more than any single program, classroom, or screen. Literacy develops through repeated opportunities to encounter language, stories, books, conversation, and play across the people and places that make up children’s lives.
By studying how those experiences work together, EDC will generate insights that can help communities create stronger environments for early learning and help the field understand how effective approaches can be adapted and scaled.
The five-year initiative is supported through a Ready To Learn award administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education. St. Louis will serve as the demonstration community, where the initiative will be developed, tested, and refined before expanding through public media stations and community partners nationwide.
The initiative brings together an innovative national partnership led by Nine PBS that along with EDC includes Fred Rogers Productions, Ad Astra Media, E-Line Media, and the Brown School Evaluation Center at Washington University in St. Louis, local public media stations, and community organizations across the country.
