This summer, the Albert L. Scott Library is one of 88 libraries statewide participating in Reimagining School Readiness facilitated through a sub-grant from the Alabama Public Library Service and developed by the Bay Area Discovery Museum with support from the California State Library and the Pacific Library Partnership. This project will help families prepare children for success in school and life and will assist in the community reaching Governor Ivey’s literacy goals. Beginning in May, these reading readiness concepts began to be incorporated into all children’s programs.
The library retooled all of its children’s programs to incorporate early literacy concepts from leading organizations including Reimagining School Readiness, Every Child Ready to Read, and 1,000 Book Before Kindergarten. Every program will focus on one or more of the following critical skill sets: talk and play; body and brain; and science and math. 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten will be introduced in August to encourage parents to read to newborns, infants, and toddlers to help parents bond with their child and build vocabulary skills in the critical zero to five years. The 1,000 Books Challenge is simple; parents should read to their child with a goal of 1,000 books before the child begins kindergarten.
Every Child Ready to Read is a parent education initiative to teach parents how to model strategies to develop early literacy skills. Typical story time activities will help parents to learn how to work on pre-reading skills with their young children. Finally, the library now has STEAM kits available for check out. Each kit has two books and an at-home activity that parents and children can work on together. The kits are provided through the Alabama Public Library Service as part of the Reimagining School Readiness Toolkit.
