National Family Literacy Month

November is National Family Literacy Month. Libraries and literacy organizations are promoting family literacy and Family Literacy Month.

Why a Family Literacy Month?  Because early involvement of parents and family, talking reading, writing, and thinking with young children is key to developing solid literacy skills. The stronger those skills are the stronger a child’s language, literacy and reading skills will be.  Success in literacy and reading spills over into success in other academic areas.

Need another reason to emphasize Family Literacy? Each child needs 1,000 books – yes, 1,000 books – read to them to be prepared for kindergarten.  Worried about that number?  Don’t despair, 1,000 books is quite doable. Parents, grandparents, care givers and siblings can all make an impact. 

Books can become favorites and read multiple times by multiple readers. Just think, one book per day for five years is 1,825 books. Well over the 1,000 needed to support a child’s literacy.

Libraries are a wonderful place to find those books children need read to them.