Libraries and foundations across the region are ratcheting up programs to promote reading and early learning as National Literacy Month draws to a close.
Local efforts include a program at Excela Westmoreland Hospital to ensure every new mother leaves with a first book for her child, a drive in Norwin to register 6-year-olds for library cards and partnerships to provide books through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in several other communities.
Norwin Library Director Diana Falk, who registers several hundred 6-year-olds for library cards every year through a partnership with the school district, said the effort pays dividends both now and in the future.
“Getting your own library card is a rite of passage,” Falk said. “You should see how proud the children are when they approach the desk for the first time. We’ll see families coming in together. When parents expose their children to the library, it sets up a lifelong relationship with learning.”
She said the Friends of the Library gives each new card holder a book of their own to cement the relationship.
“And when they come here they realize there are thousands of books to explore,” Falk said.
Building an early relationship with reading has been recognized as a key weapon to battle functional illiteracy, a condition the National Center for Educational Statistics estimates 43 million American adults struggle with.
Experts say those struggles often leave such adults with few economic opportunities and can even lead to unnecessary medical costs for those who can’t master simply reading. And no less authority than the American Academy of Pediatrics has said reading proficiency by grade three is one of the best predictors of high school graduation.
Acknowledging the power of reading to turn lives around, singer-songwriter Dolly Parton tapped her Dollywood Foundation to underwrite a program to put books into the hands of youngsters from birth through age five. Launched 26 years ago from Parton’s Sevier County, Tenn., home, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has expanded to work with local partners and has mailed out more than 160 million free books to children in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.
The program sends a free age-appropriate book once a month to children from birth through age five. Children registered at birth can receive up to 60 books by the time they age out of the program.
The Delmont Library and community and school foundations in Derry Area, the Ligonier Valley, the Mt. Pleasant Area and the city of Pittsburgh have partnered to participate in the program.
Nearly 300 children receive a book in the mail each month in the Derry Area, which launched its program in December.
“We had our 2,000th book delivered last month, and we’ve already had 50 children graduate from the program,” said Dave McCleary.
McCleary, a learning support teacher in the Derry Area School District, pitched the concept to the Derry Area Education Foundation last year after learning about the Imagination Library while watching a biography of Parton.
The Education Foundation partnered with the local Elks, the Catherine Mabis McKenna Foundation and local individual supporters to gather two years of start-up funding to launch the program.
“The first book children receive in the mail, regardless of their age, is ‘The Little Engine that Could,’ and the last one they receive right before they graduate from it is ‘Look Out Kindergarten, Here I come,’ ” McCleary said.
“Parents are excited, and kids are excited when they get a book in the mail. We’ve had parents send us pictures of kids reading their books,” said Sarah Mikeska, a fellow Derry Area teacher who has been active in the program.
Delmont Library Director Denni Grassel recently partnered with the Michael John Kakos and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Foundation and local supporters there to make Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library available to children in Delmont’s 15626 zip code. To date, the library has signed up about 20 children. It has the capacity to handle another 15 or 20, Grassel said.
While it is smaller than the school district programs, Grassel said it is gaining traction in the community and creating enthusiastic readers who come back to the library time after time.
“When I heard the cost of sponsoring a child for a year in the program was $25, I said ‘Sign us up,’ ” Grassel said.
“It’s a way to introduce children to books and build a lifelong love of learning.”
Greensburg Hempfield Area Library Director Jamie Falo said the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the Rotary are in discussions to expand the Dolly Parton program through the library’s Youngwood branch.
Jesse Sprajcar, of the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, said the agency has sponsored school readiness programs in Westmoreland County for two decades and was already a partner in the Mt. Pleasant program.
It is in early discussions about how to expand Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library throughout the county.
“The focus on reading and early literacy is very important to us,” he said.