Story time just got a lot easier for 10,000 Southern California teachers and their elementary-grade students. FarFaria and Education.com have teamed up to provide a year of free access to FarFaria's ever-growing collection of more than 700 children's books for kids ages 2-9. The engaging and charming story time app, normally $3.99 per month, $23.99 for six months or $39.99 for 12 months, is free to thousands of Southern California-based preschool and elementary school teachers who register, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.

According to representatives for the initiative, the average children's hardcover book cost $17.85 in 2013, meaning 700 new books cost just under $12,500. The high cost of books coincides with an anticipated $28.6 million literacy budget cut; this means teachers will again be asked to do more with less. Such reductions contribute to Long Beach's ranking as the country's most illiterate city.

A recent Central Connecticut State University study named Bakersfield the nation's least literate city due to its poor access to book stores, few subscriptions to magazines and no scholarly journals. Also, the city's library system is poor: Circulation is low, and the system needs more staff. Furthermore, Bakersfield's 77 percent high school graduation rate is "among the worst nationally."

Enter FarFaria and Education.com, collaboratively looking to bridge the education gap by equipping teachers with the tools to educate California's students.

"As a child, my love for reading was sparked by my teachers who gave me access to so many amazing stories," said Ajay Godhwani, CEO and co-founder of FarFaria. "This giveaway is a way of giving back and saying 'thank you' to teachers everywhere who give so much every day, and we're thrilled to be working with Education.com to make the next generation a generation of readers."

"The research is clear," said Danielle Wood, editor-in-chief of Education.com. "Children who read for pleasure are likely to do significantly better at school than their peers. When you can go beyond the mechanics of teaching kids to read, and help them develop a true passion for reading, that's where the magic happens. We think FarFaria is a great tool to help make reading irresistible to young readers, and we're thrilled to be working with the FarFaria team to help share this amazing resource with teachers across the country."

FarFaria's comprehensive features, such as "Read-to-Me," foster a life-long love of reading; they also embolden students and boost literacy. Available for the iPad and in the Google Play store, FarFaria offers offline access to favorites. FarFaria and programs like it can help eradicate illiteracy, which is a national problem: A U.S. Department of Education and National Institute of Literacy Statistics study last April found that 14 percent of U.S. adults, or 32 million Americans, are illiterate. Also, 21 percent of the population reads below a fifth-grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read at all.

San Francisco-based FarFaria was founded by people who've worked with Disney and McGraw-Hill, and it's backed by Inventus Capital Partners and leaders in Silicon Valley. Education.com, which gets more than six million visits a month from parents and educators, was founded in 2006, and its headquarters is in Redwood City, California. It offers supplemental educational resources and is backed by venture capital firms Azure Capital Partners, TeleSoft Partners and California Technology Ventures.

For more information, visit www.FarFaria.com or download the app in the App Store.

Related