1000 Books Before Kindergarten

Prioritizing reading with your children before they enter school sets them up for lifelong learning success.

Research has shown that teaching children early literacy skills helps them become more intelligent, productive, and well-adjusted adults. Of course, your child won’t learn these skills on their own, so it’s up to you as a parent to teach them. While you could certainly try to manage everything yourself, we’ve found that it’s much easier for parents to join an early literacy initiative. With that in mind, let’s review one such program: 1000 Books Before Kindergarten.

What Does the Program Entail?

The 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program is exactly what the name suggests—an open challenge for parents and children to read one thousand books together before the kids start kindergarten. There’s no set starting age, with some parents choosing to begin at infancy and others after their children have started speaking. While one thousand books may seem like an overwhelming number at face value, it’s actually quite manageable over the course of several years. 

Using the example from the program’s website, reading one bedtime story to your child every night totals at least 365 books a year. Thus, the challenge can be completed in a little under three years as long as you keep a consistent schedule or even less if you read several books a day. Assuming your child starts kindergarten at around age five, you have more than enough time to reach the goal, so we’d encourage you to give it a shot!

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How Do I Join?

If we’ve caught your attention and you’d like to join the initiative, you’re in luck! It’s an incredibly flexible program that can be done in person or online, all without costing you a dime. Just visit their website or download the app to get the ball rolling for free.

Once you’ve started, you can continue using their web resources to find new ways to progress your kid’s reading journey. From an active online community to a webpage that points you to participating public libraries, there’s a wealth of information available on their site, so we’d encourage you to give it a look!

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Why Reading with Your Children Is Important

Of course, if we’re covering an early literacy program, it’s also important to go over the benefits of reading to your child. (We’ve actually written on this subject before! If you want a more in-depth explanation, you can read one of our earlier blog posts here.) We recommend that you start reading to your child as early as possible, as they’ll benefit from it at any point.

Doing so will expose them to language and, in doing so, allow them to learn to speak and grow more confident as time goes on. In addition, making reading a part of your child’s everyday life encourages them to begin reading on their own, establishing a hobby that will serve them well for decades to come. 

And, of course, there’s the bonding aspect of it all. There are few things more important than spending time with your child. Reading with them creates countless opportunities to bond, allowing you to grow closer over a shared interest in reading. Whether or not you’ve joined an early literacy initiative like 1000 Books Before Kindergarten, we encourage you to read with your children as often as possible.

If you’d like to learn more about early literacy programs, the benefits of reading to children, and how the library can help make it happen, feel free to visit our website at EveryLibrary today!

Visit www.everylibrary.org to learn more about our work on behalf of libraries. 

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