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Reasons for action: Children who live in homes where reading and writing are common and valued have a greater chance for success with reading as they begin school. Young children who are read to by adults have better language development, emergent literacy, reading achievement, and emotional development. Family literacy programs enhance children's cognitive development. Children who watch more than 3 hours of television a day have the lowest math and literacy proficiency levels in school.
Click here to view additional Rationale or Evidence of Effectiveness.
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Providers of a wide variety of services and supports use diverse approaches (including Information handouts, book distribution programs, and counseling to parents on the importance of early literacy experiences) to promote literacy-centered practices at home. Providers encourage parents to:
- Read to children daily
- Have rich conversations with children
- Limit TV use
Providers establish lending libraries in family support centers and other community-based hubs with books for parents and books for parents to read to their children.
A variety of programs establish, expand, and support adult literacy and General Education Degree (GED) programs to equip parents to engage their children in reading and other cognitively stimulating activities. Activities to help parents provide a cognitively stimulating home are aimed especially at pregnant women, parents of young children, and providers of informal child care.
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The Hope Street Family Center offers family literacy programs and training to help parents and child care providers develop the emerging language skills of infants and toddlers.
Maryland Family Support Centers Network, as part of their encouragement to parents to read with their children, offer parents GED preparation, tutoring, and literacy instruction. | |
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Community groups work with libraries, health and child care providers, places of worship, and community organizations to increase parents' access to books and reading awareness programs.
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| The Prenatal to Three Initiative of San Mateo County (CA) promotes early literacy development by establishing close ties to libraries and a local foundation’s child literacy efforts. Home visitors give each family a book, library card application, voucher for a free child T-shirt available at the libraries, and access to a book lending service. Parent support groups and special events are held at libraries.
Ready to Learn Providence, in conjunction with the Providence Public Library, has a program that reaches out to bring underserved families to the library, gives families information about child development, and provides family literacy services. Bilingual outreach workers recruit parents at community events to come with their children to any of 10 library branches for a five- to-nine week program. Parents take courses in child development while their children participate in literacy activities. www.r2lp.org
The Hartford School Readiness Council’s Raising Readers program, in partnership with Making Connections, the Greater Hartford Literacy Council, and the Maria Sanchez School, develops reading circles within the targeted neighborhoods. Parents receive free children’s books and are encouraged to read them with their children. Parents also learn how to raise open-ended questions that foster discussion about the books. www.aecf.org/initiatives/mc/sites | |
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Local coalitions encourage the national and local media to conduct public education campaigns that emphasize:
- The importance of reading to young children at home
- The importance of interacting with young children by talking, questioning, listening, and singing with them
- The value of limiting television viewing
- How much can be done to promote language and literacy development during the first five years of life
- The importance of parents seeking out and becoming involved with child care that is both emotionally nurturing and supportive of children's cognitive development
Local coalitions advocate for public funding to expand the number and reach of high-quality family literacy programs and other efforts to expand parents' ability to cultivate their children's interest in reading and learning.
Local coalitions keep funders and policymakers informed about barriers to effective action that require solutions at the funding, policy, or regulatory level.
Funders provide resources to expand the number and reach of high-quality family literacy programs and other efforts to expand parents' ability to cultivate their children's interest in reading and learning.
Policymakers expand opportunities for federal work-study students to undertake literacy activities, including tutoring children (from infancy through elementary school), their parents, and other primary caregivers, and preparing adults to read with their own children.
Funders support the efforts of community groups to enlist libraries, health and child care providers, places of worship, and community organizations in efforts to increase parents' access to books and reading awareness programs.
Funders support public education campaigns that emphasize the importance of language and literacy development during the first five years of life, of reading to young children at home, and of interacting with young children by talking, questioning, listening, and singing with them.
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