Start a lifelong love of learning today!
Join our 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program and start a lifelong love of reading and learning with your child. This free program encourages a routine of reading at home, a major factor in increasing reading readiness when entering formal school.
How It Works
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Sign Up at the Library
Parents, Grandparents and/or Caregivers should bring their child to the library to sign up and receive a free reading journal. Children ages birth through the time they enter kindergarten are eligible.
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Read Together
Read at home with your child and record the books in the reading journal. Visit the library after you've read 100, 250, 500, 750 and 1,000 books for your child to receive each milestone prize.
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Enjoy Your Time Together
This program has no timeline except to complete it before they enter kindergarten. Take every chance you have to read with your child and share many special moments together.
FAQs
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You are your child’s first and most important teacher! You know your child best and can work with them at times when they are in the mood to learn. What you do helps your child get ready to read. There are six pre-reading skills that children must have in order to learn to read. You can practice these skills with your child at any age, from infant on up, just adapt it to their age.
Narrative Skills
What it is: Being able to describe things and events and tell stories.
What you can do: Share storytelling with your child.
Phonological Awareness
What it is: Being able to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.
What you can do: Play rhyming games. Sing songs and clap out the syllables in the words.
Print Motivation
What it is: Being interested in and enjoying books.
What you can do: Make book sharing a special time. Let your child see you read. Visit your library often.
Vocabulary
What it is: Knowing the names of things.
What you can do: Point at and identify everyday items as you encounter them. Read together every day! Research shows that children who have larger vocabularies are better readers.
Print Awareness
What it is: Noticing print, knowing how to handle a book and knowing how to follow the words on a page.
What you can do: Read aloud everyday print - labels, signs, lists, menus. Let your child hold the book and turn the pages.
Letter Knowledge
What it is: Knowing letters are different from each other, knowing their names and sounds and recognizing letters everywhere.
What you can do: Play with magnetic letters. Read alphabet books and point out the letters.
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We recommend signing up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. The program offers free books.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five, through funding shared by Dolly Parton and local community partners throughout the United States.
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We encourage you to visit the library and sign them up for the program, even if they live out of the area. The reading journals are available for purchase on Amazon and you can ship them anywhere! Click the link below to order a reading journal.
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Yes! Please consider joining us for Storytime which takes place each Friday at 10:30am. Please check the calendar of events on our website for the most up-to-date events and locations.
A very special thank you to the Friends of the Elk Rapids District Library for underwriting this important program that helps set children up for long-term success in school and in life!
