Abstract
Family Development Services, Inc. (FDS) is the grantee for the federally funded Head Start
program — a comprehensive early childhood development program for children who live in
poverty — in Marion County, Indiana. This paper addresses poverty in the United States and
Marion County, Indiana; the relationship between literacy and poverty; and the Head Start
program. It assesses the need for age-appropriate and culture-appropriate on-site lending
libraries in Head Start service centers and proposes that such libraries will have positive impact
on the cognitive and non-cognitive skills of pre-school students. This paper also addresses the
costs associated with the creation of such libraries, the validity for securing funds, and possible
sources for grant funding for their establishment.
