In the neighborhoods near Camping World Stadium, academic struggles often begin early, with most youngsters starting kindergarten ill-prepared for their first reading lessons.
Barely a quarter of the children attending public schools in that section of west Orlando tested “ready” for school when they began kindergarten last fall, meaning many could not recognize the ABCs, letter sounds or rhyming words. Without those early literacy skills, years of school problems can follow.
An ambitious new initiative aims to change that. Funded by the Ginsburg Institute at Nemours Children’s Health, its goal is simple and lofty: Get all children living in the 32805 ZIP code prepared for kindergarten.
The Kindergarten Readiness Works! program, launched last year, is working with 40 preschools in the ZIP code, training teachers on early literacy education and offering screenings for developmental delays, parenting workshops, and book giveaways. Nemours declined to disclose the project’s cost.
“Our North Star is creating a healthy generation of children, and so we are in this for the long term, and we will be assessing and learning and measuring short term metrics as we go,” said Nancy Molello, executive director of the Ginsburg Institute. “Because ultimately we want to lead and have other health systems do this work in their jurisdictions as well.”
Nemours Children’s Health has medical facilities in multiple states, including a children’s hospital in Lake Nona, and a broad mission to “help children grow into healthy adults” by focusing on medical care but also other areas, including education and housing. Its Ginsburg Institute was founded in 2022 with a $25 million gift from the Ginsburg Family Foundation.
Nemours simultaneously launched a similar kindergarten-readiness initiative in Wilmington, Delaware, where it has operated a pediatric hospital for decades. The need for such efforts, the hospital says, is obvious: Children who start kindergarten with solid early literacy skills are more likely to become strong readers, graduate from high school, attend college, get decent-paying jobs and even live longer than those who don’t.
The 32805 ZIP code, which includes the Rock Lake, Holden Heights and West Lake neighborhoods, runs along the western border of downtown Orlando, stretching from Colonial Drive south to Interstate 4.
The median household income in the ZIP code is $40,500, about half that of the overall Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area, according to U.S. Census data. The majority of the 19,300 residents are Black, and most are renters not homeowners.
Just 26% of kindergarteners in the ZIP code’s five public elementary schools tested “ready” on Florida’s assessment last year. The statewide average is 44%, and the rate is more than 60% in wealthier parts of Orange County.
Nemours’ program is largely targeted at pre-kindergarten classrooms in the neighborhood, from those in small, family-run daycares to larger preschools, but the group works in some public elementary schools, too. Combined, the schools enroll about 340 pre-K students.
Nemours chose the ZIP code, in part, because other nonprofits with similar goals already work there, giving the hospital ready partners.
What the preschools want, the initiative learned, is training for their teachers.
Most preschool teachers do not have a college degree and most earn little more than minimum wage.
“What people don’t realize is that early learning providers who work in the classroom, they don’t necessarily have education,” said Anna Kinchens, the early childhood education specialist at Lift Orlando, a nonprofit that has been working in the ZIP code for more than a decade. “They don’t take classes on how to teach.”
KINDERGARTEN READINESS INITIATIVE — Pre-k student Ari Holt, second from right, dons a crown while playing with classmates at Orange Center STEAM Academy in Orlando, Wednesday, October 28, 2026. The school receives VPK support through the Kindergarten Readiness Initiative, launched by Nemours Children’s Health. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
Lift was already working with 18 preschools and now has teamed up with Nemours on the kindergarten readiness initiative.
REED Charitable Foundation, a Winter Park nonprofit providing literacy education, has too and is helping to train teachers at many preschools in 32805.
“It’s an intensive training specifically for the age level, talking about letters and sounds but also how to develop vocabulary and comprehension,” said Jamie Dozier, chief operating officer at REED. “All sorts of foundational skills that are critical to set our kids up for success when they get to kindergarten.”
After the training, the literacy specialist co-teaches classes, modeling for the preschool teacher how to put the lessons to use, and then regularly visits the school to provide ongoing support.
The foundation also provides each class with a large plastic bin filled with educational games and curriculum supplies.
Jasmine Craig, a teacher at Mt. Sinai Child Development Center, said the training has been inspiring. She particularly likes the handheld mirrors and photos of children’s mouths forming different letter sounds.
Students use the mirrors to watch themselves sounding out words, and the photos help guide them on how to form their lips.
“When I work, I like for it to be meaningful. There’s a literacy crisis in America. People think, ‘oh, it starts in middle school.’ No, it starts here with me. I’m very passionate about it,” Craig said.
Jessica Donaldson, a public-school teacher who teaches pre-K at Orange Center STEAM Academy, a charter school run by Lift, found value in the training as well.
“It was very informative and a really great refresher from back in my college years of learning those things. And then they got us so many resources,” Donaldson said. “And it has been amazing so far. Just in this short time, I’ve seen so much growth in my kids.”
With Nemours’ funding, Lift now sponsors “literacy playdates” in some preschools.
At Little People Learning Center, every Thursday evening for three weeks families were invited to the school and served a free dinner. Teachers were paid extra to watch the children while parents were taught how to bring classroom learning home.
Rodnecia Jones, assistant director and teacher at Little People, said she can already see a difference in her students.
“They are definitely more confident,” she said. “They’re not shying away, like when they first started. They’re standing up in the middle of class screaming, ‘I got it!’”
The initiative also includes the YMCA of Central Florida, which now has a mobile outreach van Nemours helped pay for that it drives to schools and community centers in the ZIP code, offering children physical activities, healthy snacks, lessons on nutrition and a mobile library.
Nemours also plans on partnering with the Orange County Library System to bring literacy programming to children who don’t go to preschool.
“We really view ourselves as a community quarterback,” Molello said. “The quarterback can see the whole field and can help the team operate together to actually get that ball across the finish line, and that’s how we feel about who we are with our community partners.”