Above: A town church youth group is working to help with a literacy program for low-income families. (Image from Facebook)
High School students at St. Anne Church are collecting gently used children’s books for the Massachusetts chapter of the Reach Out and Read program.
The program works with medical providers, to give young children “a foundation for success”.
It was developed to address an important learning gap for children of low-income families:
The first five years of life offer a critical window for learning, with rapid brain development that does not occur at any other time. Many children, especially from low-income families, are not read to from birth. Children who grow up without sufficient exposure to language arrive at school without basic literacy skills, and often struggle with reading in early grades.
To address the issue, doctors and nurses take advantage of checkups to:
give new, developmentally-appropriate books to children, ages 6 months through 5 years, and advise parents about the importance of reading aloud.
To help, drop off “gently used” books in the bins provided in the lobby of the parish hall at St Anne Church, 20 Boston Rd. through March 6.
For more information on the drive, please call Mary Piekarz, Coordinator of High School Ministry at 508-272-9378. For more information on Reach Out and Read, click here.
On a side note, I’ve long believed that if parents enjoy reading to their kids, they do it more frequently.
That was one reason that I used to share my book recommendations for families with young kids. You can read those here.
