ABSTRACT
Since its beginning in 1994, the US Department of Education’s Ready to Learn Initiative has seen substantial changes in media for children and families, including those in low-income communities. What started as a commitment to using public television programming to promote school readiness has evolved into a multi-layered investment in innovative transmedia production, caregiver and educator supports, community-based outreach, local-to-national distribution models, formative research, and effi cacy studies. During the 2010-2015 grant period, change has been dramatic, if also intermittent and quixotic; touchscreens did not exist when the funding cycle began, much less had they found their way into many parents’ pockets. Thus, 2010 and 2015 off er convenient start and end points for viewing the children’s media landscape.
