I hope everyone endorses First Library's new mission. 

Changing the way first time mothers think about reading, and library patronage, will have a lasting effect upon their child's life now, and in the future.

Catherine

61% of low-income families have no age-appropriate (children's) books in their homes. 

With First Library's assistance new first time parents will be able to make reading and book ownership a priority in their child's life.  Children will receive up to 60 books while in the First Library program.

There is only one book for every 300 children in low-income neighborhoods. First born children, regardless of their neighborhood, will receive 12 times the books a year while in the First Library program. 

Children from middle-income homes have on average 13 books per child. With First Library's assistance every new first time parent will have almost 13 books a year for their first born child a year, regardless of their income. 

Parents often ask me how they can make reading a part of their child's daily life. I often say, "Make it a regular part of their lives... like television, and children will too." Many parents allow / schedule TV time. Why not schedule book time? Make it after dinner or after snack time. Children love discipline and routine. By scheduling and making reading a daily part of their lives children will look forward to the quiet and happy time books bring to their lives. 

1. Reading to baby during pregnancy helps other family members take an active role in preparing for baby.

2. Babies enjoy the rhythm of language and their parents’ voices.

3. The sound of your voice is calming and soothing to your baby.

4. Reading to your baby now will make it easy to make reading a part of everyday family life after your baby is born.

5. Reading time can be relaxing time as you anticipate your baby’s arrival. 

1. When you hold your baby and read to him, you show your baby you love him.

2. Reading time can be relaxing time. The sound of your voice is calming and

soothing to your baby.

3. Reading to your baby helps her brain grow!

4. Listening to you read, talk and sing gives your baby the words he will say some day.

5. Your baby learns the names of things when you talk about the pictures in books.

she learns there is a story inside.

2. The rhythm and rhyme in children’s books are like a song to your baby that is more entertaining than everyday talking.

3. Reading to your baby strengthens his emotional bonds with family members.

4. Reading to your baby now will start the tradition of reading together every day

as your child grows older.

5. When you read to your baby she is on her way to loving books!

What book have you gifted the most?

No need to ask why. They will tell you.

Happy Holidays!

An avid reader is a reader who is eager to get hold of latest releases or bestsellers in his favorite genres. The literary's quality of a book is the most important criteria for choosing to satisfy the reader's appetite for reading.

librarything.com

Start the New Year with a new resolution: READ A BOOK A WEEK!

Children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score better on reading tests than infrequent readers. Frequent readers also score better on writing tests than non-readers or infrequent readers. 

Reach Out and Read, Reading Aloud to Children: The Evidence, Archives for Disease Control, 2008.

There is strong evidence that reading for pleasure can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and improve well being throughout life, new research carried out for The Reading Agency has found.

The report, conducted by BOP Consulting and funded by the Peter Sowerby Foundation, brings together a strong and growing body of research that shows how and why reading for pleasure can bring a range of other benefits to individuals and society. There is already strong evidence to show that reading for pleasure plays a vital role in improving educational outcomes.

The Reading Agency 

1. Resurrect the read-aloud.

Reading out loud is not simply a stepping-stone to learning to read silently; it's also a way to build vocabulary, attention skills, and comprehension, as well as--perhaps most important--a love of reading. If you're already doing the one-on-one bedtime story, think about ways to switch up the sessions: Read over breakfast. Encourage siblings to read out loud to each other or to the family pet. Alternate pages or chapters with your child. Or gather the whole family together for a group read-aloud.

2. Take it on the road.

Books are the ultimate portable entertainment--they're durable and impervious to a few drips of water (at least the non-electronic variety), and easy to read in the sunlight. Keep a chapter book in your bag to pull out while you're waiting at a restaurant, sitting poolside or on the beach, hanging out in a tree house, or while camping in a tent with a flashlight.

3. Bring stories to life.

Read horse books before your child goes to horseback-riding camp, Little House on the Prairie before you tour a pioneer village, a bio of a favorite baseball or football player before you visit a sports hall of fame.

4. Be a reading buddy.

If you see your child reading when you aren't, grab your own book and cozy up (well, as close as he'll let you) to read beside him. Prefer a scheduled approach? Try DEAR--Drop Everything and Read--sessions, in which the whole family reads at the same time.

5. Make books a basic.

Look at reading material like food and clothes: You wouldn't leave the refrigerator or the closet empty, so don't let the bookshelf go bare, either. Find a librarian or a teacher who keeps current with what's new and popular for kids, or play the cool card: Get a respected teen to tell your tween what books he enjoyed.

Parenting.com

There are so many books to choose from that it can be hard to know where to start.

As a broad rule, young children often enjoy books, songs and stories that have good rhyme, rhythm and repetition. In fact, one of the ways that children learn is through repetition and rhyme.

Choose books that are the right length for your child and that match your child’s changing interests.

You can also vary the books and printed materials you read. Picture books, ebooks, magazines, instruction manuals, TV guides and letters can all be interesting and engaging for your child. If you’re interested in ebooks, look for ones without distracting games or animations. And it’s important to enjoy ebooks with your child, rather than leaving him alone with a device.

If you want to try new books or magazines without much cost, you could arrange book swaps with friends, or with other parents at your parent group or early childhood center.

Raisingchildren.net.au 

15 minutes seems to be the “magic number” at which students start seeing substantial positive gains in reading achievement; students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per day see the greatest gains of all.

Although many other factors—such as quality of instruction, equitable access to reading materials, and family background—also play a role in achievement, the consistent connection between time spent reading per day and reading growth cannot be ignored.

Moreover, if reading practice is linked to reading growth and achievement, then it follows that low levels of reading practice should correlate to low levels of reading performance and high levels of reading practice should connect to high levels of reading performance. 

Renaissance.com

Reading to your child daily is shown to be a primary component of academic and future success that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recently refined its recommendations to urge pediatricians to not only encourage parents in feeding and sleeping routines for their babies, but also in their daily reading routines as well.

http://neafamily.com/your-family/parenting/the-importance-of-reading-to-your-baby/#.XBe33GhKiM8

Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting shows that reading books with a child beginning in early infancy can boost vocabulary and reading skills four years later, before the start of elementary school.

www.aappublications.org/news/2017/05/04/PASLiteracy050417

Pick a classic that’s been turned into a movie and read it together, a few chapters at a time. When you’re finished watch the film version. 

It's another great way to bring books into children's everyday lives. 

Don’t just keep books up on a shelf. Leave them out and about. Even on the floor and in the car. Kids like to touch and carry them around. Keep them at arms reach at all times. 

Reading daily and often may help eliminate illiteracy. Phonic tutoring could be the missing component in the reason a child living in a print rich environment is not reading. 

http://www.educationviews.org/i-felt-terrible-why-parents-are-blamed-when-their-child-cant-read/

Make going to the library a happy special time not a chore.

Your kids will love you and look forward to the activity. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-french-cully/five-good-reasons-to-take_b_5134342.html

William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education, in his "First Lessons'' report, stressed the role of parents in their children's education as well as the importance of voluntary community efforts to support public education. ''Since we know, for example, that reading to young children helps them learn to read, illiterate parents should have sources of help with this activity,'' he said. ''Each community can find suitable ways of providing such assistance: parents certainly are not the only possible 'readers."

What programs does your library offer?

https://books.google.com/books/about/First_Lessons.html?id=8sXzqiKThXIC&source=kp_book_description

As soon as they are able to print their name (or the library allows) help your child get their own library. It's an important rite of passage in a young reader's life. And don't forget to celebrate this major fete in a major way - EAT ICE CREAM!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

There are some many wonderful children's books why limit your child to the same ones every day ? Take that new library card and borrow some new ones from your local library.

I'm so excited to announce that First Library is now available in Cedar Knolls, Green Village, Morristown, New Vernon, and Whippany, as well as the Chathams. Tell all the new moms you see and make sure they register for the program. 

Here we go again! First Library is in Carteret, Edison, North Brunswick Port Reading and Sewaren. Run, don't walk, to the mailbox with your child's registration form.

One more time, with feeling! First Library is in Basking Ridge. Time to sign your baby up for free books and a new library card.