Welcome to The Nyack Basics Page

Child reading a book

DID YOU KNOW?  80% of brain growth happens in the first three years of life.

During the early years of brain growth, infants and toddlers absorb massive amounts of information from interactions with people.  This early learning becomes the foundation for all future learning.

Watch The Power of Reading. 

THE NYACK BASICS are five evidence-based parenting and caregiving principles that help our children grow and thrive to become the happiest and most successful they can be! 

The Nyack Basics Campaign is helping to ensure all parents and caregivers know what they can do for babies to learn and thrive with a community goal: "All Students Read by 3rd Grade". Join us!

Nyack Basics is an active member of a national campaign conceived by the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University.   To learn more about , view our Nyack Basics videos, provided in English and Spanish.

The Nyack Basics - 5 Principles                 Los Nyack Basics , en espanol

Join Us!

Contact:

Dr. Winsome Gregory,

Asst. Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction/Personnel

phone:  (845) 353-7052

wgregory@nyackschools.org

A Moral Imperative: All Students Reading by 3rd Grade

The correlation between students’ failure to read by the end of the 2nd grade and involvement in the criminal justice system is undeniable. Students who are unable to read by the end of the third grade are also four to six times less likely to graduate high school. High school drop-outs are 63% more likely to be incarcerated than college graduates and 85% of all youths who interface with the juvenile courts have been found to be functionally illiterate (Northeastern University, 2009). Ultimately, the school to prison pipeline and mass incarceration devastate lives and cost the government over $182 billion every year (Wagner & Rabuy, 2017).

All students reading by the third grade on a national level would save billions of dollars, disrupt the school to prison pipeline and enable us to prepare students to succeed in a global economy. Ultimately, it is a moral imperative that all students have equitable opportunity to pursue their aspirations in an increasingly complex world.

Nyack Schools launching an initiative to raise student achievement and early childhood literacy (K-2) to have all students reading by the end of the 2nd grade.  We envision five components to this initiative:

  1. From Birth to Two Years:  "The Nyack Basics"
  2. Three and Four Years of Age
  3. Kindergarten 
  4. First and Second Grade
  5. Summer Support and Mobile Libraries

This District-lead, community-wide initiative seeks collaborative partners with the business, civic and faith communities, pre-schools, libraries, community centers, elected officials as this initiative is being developed during the 2017-18 school year.  Please contact Dr. Winsome Gregory, Asst. Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction/Personnel at Nyack Public Schools, for more information or to find out how you can be involved:  (845) 353-7052.

Watch Now! Learn More.

Watch our NEW Nyack Basics videos, here

Available in English and Spanish, this series of video vignettes demonstrate how parents make the critical difference in being their own child's first best teacher - for school readiness, emotional well being, and life opportunities.