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Read – Talk – Play to Learn
Reading, talking and playing activities provide critical developmental experiences for children ages 0-5 that empower reading success. Unfortunately, many children do not receive sufficient and proper learning experiences and therefore enter kindergarten one to three years behind in the foundational pre-reading skills.
Vision
Many families are not able to provide their children with sufficient learning experiences. The most common challenges include the following:
Strategies
Reading, talking and playing activities provide critical developmental experiences for children ages 0-5 that empower reading success. Unfortunately, many children do not receive sufficient and proper learning experiences and therefore enter kindergarten one to three years behind in the foundational pre-reading skills.
Vision
- Every family will understand the value of reading, talking, and playing the right way with their children and understand their key role in making this happen.
- Every family will read, talk, and play with their children adequately.
- In cases where a family cannot read, talk, and play with their children enough, they will participate in community programs to meet this need.
- Community organizations surrounding every elementary school in the US will build a viable RTP Program. Churches will take the lead role in each community to provide a safe haven and help to provide the support and resources to make this happen.
Many families are not able to provide their children with sufficient learning experiences. The most common challenges include the following:
- Lack of understanding of the importance and consequences
- Believe schools will take care of the issue
- Lack of resources
- In survival mode and overwhelmed, don’t have time
- Difficult family situation where parents are not available
- Lack of skills to engage properly in these activities
- Many communities and national organizations have tried for years to promote early childhood education. Despite these efforts and isolated success stories, the problem persists. We need to develop new strategies to change this paradigm.
Strategies
- Organize more effectively community by community. We propose that the community tied to each elementary school would organize independently as an affiliate of a national organization, similar in nature to a PTA or PTO, but with a much broader mandate.
- We would identify a lead person or lead organization to take on the role of organizing and maintaining each local group.
- Most programs primarily provide information and conduct training meetings. Information is important, but there must be an ongoing membership-based interaction. Families must be welcomed into a village that provides more than information.
- Engage community organizations to provide more awareness and support. For example, we hope to engage the medical community to endorse and promote the program to families, starting with prenatal care.
- Provide community programs, or “reading parties”, at organizations throughout the neighborhood on a weekly basis. We believe churches would provide an ideal safe haven in most communities. Reading Parties could also be held at schools.
- Reading Parties would be held several days a week. Volunteers would be available to train parents and to read to children.
- Books and games would be available for loan.
- We plan to organize each group through a social media platform to connect members (MySchoolVillage.org)
- We will work to connect every family to the Internet.