Families get Ready to Read at Young Parents Network meeting

CEDAR RAPIDS - Through a new program aimed at improving literacy, the Young Parents Network is giving area parents and children access to books and interactive activities designed to nurture a love for reading.

At a Young Parents Network meeting last night at Polk Alternative Education Center, the organization kicked off Ready to Read with parents enrolled in YPN.

Ready to Read is based on a reading program in Ohio. It provides families not only with books, but with follow-up activities designed to increase comprehension.

Over the years, Cedar Rapids schools 'have identified that children coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have a high probability that they are not entering the kindergarten door ready to learn,” said Brian Stutzman, executive director of the Young Parents Network.

Children who have gone through YPN programming have a 16 percent to 19 percent higher probability of being school-ready, Stutzman said.

'We've been thinking about ways that we can involve more children in some of the early literacy tactics that we do,” he said.

Staffers heard about Ready to Read in Columbus, Ohio.

'The premise was, really talking to parents at a very basic level to help them understand the importance of their role in early literacy and how they have a major component in making sure their kids were ready for school,” he said.

On a Ready to Read night, families with children are organized in groups based on the child's age - infant, toddler and preschool levels, said YPN program manager Crystal Hall.

Within each subset, there are four skills: print knowledge, chronological awareness, vocabulary and narrative.

When parents arrive at the session, they will receive a book that focuses on two of the four skills. For example, a trained volunteer may use a book called 'Llama Llama Red Pajama,” Hall said. Volunteers talk to parents about the particular skills to be practiced within the two specific categories using a particular book.

Parents demonstrate skill building by reading the book to a child and pairing it with a hands- on activity, Hall said. The goal is to build comprehension skills.

'Using Llama Llama Red Pajama as an example, after reading the book, then the child and the parent would actually be making Llama's quilt that's on his bed,” Hall said. 'So it's a lesson that talks about matching and patterns, size and shape and things like that that again correspond to the story.”

After the first book and exercise are complete, parents and children move onto the second book. Skills are modeled, then discussed, parents read the book to the child implementing the skills, followed by another paired activity, Hall said.

At the end of the evening, parents go home with both books. The launch at Polk last night also included a dinner prepared by YPN staff and volunteers, Hall said.

To reach families from diverse backgrounds, the program also will cater to Spanish and Swahili speakers.

'This isn't intended to be a one and done,” he said. 'The relationships with the schools, the relationships with the neighborhoods, it's intended for parents to continue participating in this in a minimum of a quarterly basis.”

The program is open to parents enrolled in the Young Parents Network and to schools in the Cedar Rapids Community School District. Ready to Read is being paid for through a grant from ITC Midwest.

Ready to Read will be held three more times at YPN group meetings at Polk Alternative Education Center. It will meet three more times at Taylor Elementary and two more times at Hoover Elementary. After that, the intent is for the program to be quarterly.