We know that you are concerned with your child's development and with their overall health, but we hope that you are concerned with their mind as well as their body. To help your child develop the skills they need to learn to read before they get to Kindergarten. If you have ever heard a teacher or someone on TV refer to 'early literacy', they are refering to the skills children learn about reading and writing before they even begin to read and write. We hope that the following information helps you in your strive to help your children in their early literacy stage.

1Kb4K: reading to a thousand!

Our newest program to encourage young readers! Starting in the Fall of 2014, you can pick up a folder to start your child's goal of reading a thousand books before Kindergarten. As you and your child get through all of those books, you will get a prize for each 100 books you complete. In addition, you will get a special comletion prize.

Activities

At the library, we host story and music programs for our youngest customers because we want to help them practice their skills, but also to help show parents how to exhibit, play, or perform so that their child can learn these skills at home. We also have interactive play activities on the 2nd floor where you and your child can have fun and they can learn something as well.

Articles and Information

If you are interested in why we do what we do, the science behind early literacy skills, or tips for helping your child, check out these articles:

• Helping Preschool Children Become Readers: tips for parents (PDF of article)
• Some ABCs for Raising a Reader (PDF of article)
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Every Child Ready to Read

Every Child Ready to Read is a program developed by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Public Library Association (PLA). It was created to teach parents and caregivers how to support early literacy development in their child. You can find more information at everychildreadytoread.org, and by attending one of our tri-yearly parent programs, Getting Your Child Ready to Read, held each year in February, June, and October.

Rennovation

You may have noticed some changes going on on the 2nd floor of the library. Recently we had to get rid of the Friend Ship and we have started moving around the different collections. We aren't doing it just to drive you crazy as you try to find the CD your child HAS to have, we are actually making more room in the storytime room to accomodate our successful programming schedule, creating a destination for you and your family to learn together, and making the floor more inviting for our youngest guests. We know that during the rennovation it can be hard to see how wonderful the floor will become, but we hope you will be patient and in the end get excited as we are the 2nd floor changes into your early literacy oasis.