Early Literacy Dashboard

Our community told us there was no shared way to understand whether children were on track to read by third grade. While third grade reading scores matter, the data often comes too late to take an upstream approach.

The Early Literacy Dashboard was created to help parents, nonprofits, healthcare organizations, schools, and community partners align around what matters most. Together, we identified seven key benchmarks from birth to age 9 that will help our community track progress, identify gaps, and take action so more children are reading by third grade.

Phase 1 of the dashboard launched at the May 6, 2026 Early Literacy Convening and currently features data focused on book access. Additional phases will launch throughout 2026 and 2027.

Explore the data below.

Best viewed on a desktop or laptop computer. The dashboard is not currently mobile friendly.

This dashboard is a part of the

forWORDS Initiative


forWORDS is a community-wide literacy initiative led by Achieve Brown County to help more children build the early foundation they need to read by third grade and thrive for a lifetime.

Learn More
Two women holding signs in front of colorful letters spelling 'READ' in a library. One sign says 'Coming together, working together.' and the other says 'Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.'
A group of five individuals standing together in an office setting, holding signs that promote literacy and educational goals for children. The signs read 'All kids reading at grade level by third' and 'no funding, no reading skills, no work.' A whiteboard with notes is visible in the background.
A group of six individuals standing in a meeting room, holding a sign that states '90% of child's brain develops in the first five years.' A whiteboard with notes and a presentation screen is visible in the background.
A group photo of a diverse gathering of individuals seated and standing in a room, with colorful sticky notes posted on the wall behind them and tables in the foreground.

Data Requests

Data Request Form

Need early literacy data for grant writing, planning, or decision making? Can’t find it on our site?
Submit a data request.