When Mothers Can Read

A mother’s ability to read is the greatest determinant of her children’s future academic success, often outweighing neighborhood and family income. Literate mothers provide essential early language stimulation, directly reducing child mortality rates by roughly 41% and closing the “one-million-word-gap” before kindergarten (https://firstliteracy.org/why-a-mothers-literacy-matters/).

Why does the Carnevali Foundation put a library and a librarian in every one of its schools in India? Why do we offer Adult Literacy Classes to parents and ladies from the local neighborhood?

At our adopted schools in India, we have seen illiterate women learn the alphabet, then how to write letters, words, and sentences. They are proud as are their children. Finally, they can understand their kids’ homework and school papers, communicate with teachers…and read with their children at home.                      

Women of all ages attend our Adult Literacy Classes

In fact, researchers have shown that children who are read five books a day, start kindergarten knowing 1.4 million more words than their classmates who were not read to (Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics).

Children learn before going to school that literate communication is important. Special bonds are formed in the earliest stages of development. Reading while shopping in stores, naming streets, identifying as a citizen, having a home address ALL come from the ability read.

The pride of being able to help children with their homework

At the Carnevali Foundation, our Adult Literacy Program — which we initially started at Pappireddy Nagar in 2019 — was heralded by our Foundation Graduates. When our Team in India inquired if this was a good idea, they unanimously responded, “Yes Madam, YES YES YES!”. This marked the start of Carnevali’s commitment to a life-long learning model, with the goal of empowering women to transform their lives, their children’s lives and their local communities.

As an interesting side note, while fathers are encouraged to attend literacy classes, none have ever shown interest, likely due to work obligations or cultural norms. However, we will continue to try to engage their participation!

Ladies from our Adult Literacy Program proudly displaying their “Diplomas”