LeVar Burton's New Kickstarter Brings the Magic of Reading Rainbow to Classrooms

For the current generation of young parents, Reading Rainbow was a seminal part of our childhood and education. And it was free.

Two years ago, LeVar Burton’s educational technology company RRKidz launched a Reading Rainbow tablet app to try and bring all of that rich material to today’s kids. The app has hundreds of books and brand new educational video field trips, and it is wildly successful with more than 12 million books read and videos viewed to date. But unless you have a tablet you can’t have the experience.

It’s hard to believe that not all of today’s young kids know every word to the theme song or recognize that bright Reading Rainbow sticker on a library book. LeVar Burton wants to change that, and he wants to make the impact even bigger.

Starting today, he is launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $1 million dollars to expand the modern digital Reading Rainbow program to the web. While the program will be available to kids at home or even their public library, it will be specifically tailoried to classroom teachers and homeschoolers. The new program will have a teacher dashboard, educator-created supplemental materials designed to Common Core standards, and many more books.

The most impressive goal of the program, however, is to create a non-profit program to help subsidize the cost. RRKidz wants every child to have access to these materials, making it completely free to the most disadvantaged schools.

When I was sixteen, I saw Mr. Burton on television at a Congressional hearing to discuss budget cuts to public television programming. He spoke with such passion and knowledge about childhood development and the important role these programs played that I wrote a letter to my local PBS station to share how public programming helped shape my education. The letter was published in PBS magazine; I still have my framed copy, and I still recognize the value of what those entertainers, educators, and media makers gave to this generation of parents.

So I’m donating to this Kickstarter to help bring that experience to all of today’s kids. If you’d like to donate as well, watch the video above and then visit the Kickstarter page here.