Frequent Questions

Nebraska Growing Readers is a grant-funded partnership between the Nebraska Department of Education, Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, the Statewide Family
Engagement Center, and Unite for Literacy to expand access to free books across the state. The NGR initiative is an effort to inspire a love of reading in the youngest Nebraskans as well to help nurture parent-child relationships through daily reading.

This project is made possible through a Nebraska Department of Education ESSER III funding source. If you have additional questions about the grant, you may contact Wendy Keele at wkeele@nebraskachildren.org.

NGR book distribution occurs through licensed child care centers and home providers who have registered for the program. Our goal is to partner with 1,000 sites. We reached our goal in May 2024. Once enrolled in the program, sites will receive a delivery of books each month through December 2024.

Please contact Wendy Keele (wkeele@nebraskachildren.org) to check on availability to register.

No, this program, including digital and printed books, is free to registered child care providers and centers.

Not at this time.

Registered providers receive shipments of books by mail approximately four weeks after registering on the Nebraska Growing Readers website. Subsequently, you will receive monthly boxes of books through the mail ending in December 2024.

Registered kindergarten families will receive their first set of 4 books approximately 4 weeks after registering and will continue to receive weekly books through the end of December.

Once you have registered, you should receive an email confirmation. Approximately four weeks after registration, your books should ship. If you have any questions about shipping, please contact Nicholas McGuffee of Unite for Literacy at nicholas.mcguffee@uniteforliteracy.com.

Unite for Literacy packages the sets of books each month. All child care sites will receive the same titles each month. We are not able to individualize book distribution to different sites.

Registered providers and families will receive books through December 2024. If we receive additional funding, this date will be extended.

Questions concerning NGR should be directed to Wendy Keele at Nebraska Children-- wkeele@nebraskachildren.org or Greta Carlson--gcarlson@nebraskachildren.org or by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

You can withdraw your participation at any time. Please contact Wendy Keele, w.keele@nebraskachildren.org, to change your registration status.

●Display the books at your location for families and children to see.
● Alert families when new books arrive.
● Contact us if there are any changes needed to your registration--for example, change of address, increase or decrease in number of books received, and to include books written in Spanish in your order.

If your child will be starting kindergarten in fall 2024, you can register them to receive books mailed to their home beginning in June. Click the question for the registration site. (Note: If you live in Omaha, Lincoln, Schuyler, or Hastings you will not be able to register until a later date. This note will change when those registration links are open.)

The books your child will receive are different than the books available through the childcare provider. The new books are written for children ages 4 – 6.

There is research that shows when a child has access to 100 or more books in their home, the higher their reading scores will be when tested. A wide variety of books also allows for the child’s interests to change and new favorite books to be selected.

For more on why reading matters, visit our resource page by clicking this question.

Nebraska Growing Readers has agreements signed with the schools participating in our study to receive the literacy scores for children registered. There is no additional assessment that will be done. The literacy scores are collected every year by the public school districts.