Let’s Read! Launches Literacy Project in Sharbot Lake

Jeff Green | Feb 04, 2010

Kristen Watkins, Brenda Bonner of the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team and NIna Jenkins of the Trilium Foundation“.

Kingston Literacy & Skills, along with their collaborating community partners, marked Family Literacy Day by opening its first Let’s Read! book nook in the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team clinic last Wednesday January 27.

Made possible with a two-year $94,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF), the book nook is a quiet corner of the clinic that has comfortable couches and baskets full of some of the classic books and board books for young and very young children.

“The grant money is primarily used to purchase books. Books for babies and children up to age 6 for the book nooks in clinic waiting rooms, board books for toddlers at their 18-month check up and for inclusion in our Newborn Literacy Kits,” said Let’s Read! Project Coordinator, Kristen Watkins. “The primary message we want to deliver is ‘read to your baby every day from birth.’”

The Let’s Read! initiative will be launched in a total of 8 clinics in the KFL&A area over the next 2 years. As well as establishing book nooks and literacy promotion in medical clinic waiting rooms, Let’s Read! hopes to distribute over 500 board books each year to doctors and nurse practitioners to give to patients at their child’s 18-month well baby check-up. The book includes a sticker for the toddler with an invitation to go to their local library for a free toddler tote bag with literacy activities inside, as well as a library card application.

“Research has shown that strategies to prevent reading problems need to be in place long before children start grade one. Let’s Read! is a six-step early literacy strategy that supports parents in helping their children learn to read,” said Kristen Watkins. “Key elements of the strategy include health professionals talking about the importance of family reading and providing resources for parents that promote family literacy.”

Along with an 18-month book give away, Let’s Read! also puts together and distributes Newborn Literacy Kits to roughly 2000 babies born each year in Kingston and surrounding area. The kits include a board book for baby, a CD of rhymes and songs developed by the Kingston and the Islands Ontario Early Years Centre and early literacy information for parents. A pre-natal public awareness campaign promoting the importance of reading from birth, and school readiness kits (which will be available for loan at participating public libraries this spring) are also part of the Let’s Read! strategy.

“It’s an exciting and worthwhile project based on research illustrating the connection between reading daily with your child and the acquisition of enhanced language skills and literacy development,” says Watkins, who adds that, “Kingston Literacy and all of our partnering agencies are very grateful to Trillium Foundation for its commitment to literacy programs in our community.”

For more information about Let’s Read, please contact: Kristen Watkins 613.546.2580

For further information about the Trillium Foundation, go to www.trilliumfoundation.org.