Why is Imagination Library Important?
- The overarching goal for everyone involved in early childhood education is finding ways to level the educational playing field for all children entering the formal school setting, at the lowest cost. The Imagination Library provides books, as a gift from the community, at a cost of $2.10 per child per month.
- For low-income families, the Imagination Library can help eliminate the cost barrier to having books in the home and encourage family involvement in early childhood reading.
- A 2014 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement recommends that pediatric providers advise parents of young children that reading aloud and talking about pictures and words in age-appropriate books can strengthen language skills, literacy development and parent-child relationships. They also recommend the importance of starting to read to children at birth. The Imagination Library assists with these recommendations by providing those books with which parents can read to their newborns and young children.
- Many parents simply are not sure how to read to their children. The Imagination Library now provides useful tips and activities in its books to help parents better understand how to read to their children in the most beneficial ways.
- The Imagination Library can be the foundation on which others can build. Programs like Parents as Teachers, TIPS, HIPPY, Head Start, ARKids Read, Reach Out and Read, Arkansas Better Chance, independent child care facilities, Mother’s Day Out programs at local places of worship, etc. become collaborators and partners that ensure community involvement. Improved outcomes in school readiness and the strengthening of families and communities occurs when we all work together toward our common goals.
- This investment in Arkansas’ preschool children helps develop the necessary prereading and reading skills so they are more likely to graduate from high school workforce-ready or college-bound and on the path to becoming fully productive citizens,
