FAMILY, Inc. Launches Baby Reads Library Partnership to Bridge the Economic Gap

FAMILY, Inc. Launches Baby Reads Library Partnership to Bridge the Economic Gap

Through its Raise Me to Read program, FAMILY, Inc. (familyia.org) recently partnered with Council Bluffs Public Library to launch a Baby Reads program to help bridge the economic gap that extends to children’s vocabularies. Research shows that children’s vocabulary skills are linked to their economic backgrounds. By three years old, there is a 30-million-word gap between children from the wealthiest and poorest families, and a recent study shows that by 18 months, children in different socioeconomic groups display dramatic differences in their vocabularies. The FAMILY, Inc. Raise Me to Read library partnership aims to give families the tools they need to help their children succeed.

Baby Reads promotes preventive early literacy tools to new parents by giving them increased library access. The program is available to anyone who is eligible for a Council Bluffs Public Library card and has a child under one year of age. When you sign your baby up for a library card as part of Baby Reads, you will receive a free board book, a one-time waiver of all fines and fees on your own library account, and access to all of the library’s wonderful resources.

Raise Me to Read is an Iowa West Foundation initiative that is part of FAMILY, Inc. and the national campaign for Grade Level Reading. It seeks to improve student’s reading proficiency by the end of third grade through targeted approaches in the three key areas of school: readiness; attendance; and out-of-school learning. Students who don’t reach this milestone are four times more likely to drop out of high school.

For more about FAMILY, Inc, visit familyia.org, and for detail about Baby Reads, please visit raisemetoread.org/swi-baby-reads.