Raising A Reader: Starting Children on the Path to Reading
Raising A Reader is designed to encourage healthy brain development, parent-child bonding, and early literacy skills critical for school success. The program fosters a reading routine between parents and children from birth through age five, made possible by the weekly rotation of bright red bags containing carefully selected books.
Above Photos: Raising A Reader participants love their new books.
Parents are taught “read-aloud” strategies anchored to language development and story-telling. Book bags are dispersed through child care providers and such affiliates as the YMCA, the Women’s Refuge, and Bright Futures. A $1,050,000 partnership forged between First Five Shasta and The McConnell Foundation has funded this four-year program. Parents and children participating in the program are already enjoying their newly established reading routines. Upon completion of the book rotation cycle, children are awarded their own blue book bag and encouraged to visit local libraries to continue borrowing books.
One Family's Raising A Reader Experience
Skylar loves Thursdays when he can bring home his Raising A Reader book bag. As soon as we get home we have to sit down and read ALL the books. Then he takes the books into his baby sister’s room and “reads” them to her, telling her what he remembers of the stories from each picture. Skylar loves telling his sister the stories, and she gets so excited when he “reads” to her. ~ Raina, Skylar’s mom