Vilonia Assistant Librarian Dana Bayless reads to her almost 4-year-old son, Gabriel, every night, then logs the books into an app on her phone with a goal to read 1,000 books before he starts kindergarten.
They’re well on the way.
“We’ve read 700-something that we’ve logged,” Bayless said. She has also just started logging books she reads to her 21-month-old daughter, Sunny.
The national program, 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten, is for children between birth and 5 years old. The Faulkner County Library in Conway joined the program in September 2018, and now it is being expanded to the Vilonia branch.
On Jan. 30, a kickoff celebration for the program will take place at 10:30 a.m. at the Vilonia Public Library, 3 Bise Drive, and those patrons can sign up to participate in person or online at www.fcl.org. The first 30 children registered will receive a goody bag with a free book and other literacy-related items.
“It’s also our normal story time, so I’m hoping to get more kiddos in here for that,” Bayless said.
Mary Spears Polk, story-time programmer for the Conway branch, spearheaded the project for the main library. “We’re doing story time here, but we really wanted to do more to encourage literacy,” she said.
Polk, a former preschool teacher and administrator at First United Methodist Church in Conway, said she has a “soft spot” for reading to children and knows how important it is for them.
She said that although she loved her preschool position, the story-programmer’s position went from part time to full time at the library, so she applied. It was a “dream job opening over here,” she said. Polk has been in the position about a year.
Polk said she became aware of the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Foundation and the challenge to caregivers of children birth to age 5 to read aloud to them.
In Conway, there are 190 children enrolled in the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program.
“It sets not only a good foundation for literacy and getting children ready to read; it promotes bonding and healthy relationships between the caregiver and the child and helps close the vocabulary gap that teachers often find children have when they get to kindergarten, in the number of words they know or have been exposed to.”
Polk said it’s OK if a child doesn’t want to sit through an entire book, wants to read the same page over and over or skips ahead.
Bayless, who started working at the Vilonia branch six years ago in August, said she’s getting excited about the kickoff in Vilonia.
“I’ve been [reading] with my son with no incentives, really,” Bayless said, adding that she heard about the program and thought, “Oh, well, that’s neat — just a way to keep track.”
Polk said some parents like the app; others prefer using pencil and paper to record the books.
She said the library has been “really lucky to have the support of different sponsors,” including Friends of the Faulkner County Library.
Bayless said the Vilonia Animal Clinic donated $500 to the program.
As in Conway, parents in Vilonia can come back to the library and get incentives for every 100 books they read to their child. There will be coupons from restaurants.
“There are little stickers, ‘We read 100 books,’ or 200 books or whatever. When you get to 1,000, it’s a really big deal,” Polk said. “A couple of times a year, we will do a big celebration for that.”
Polk said parents or caregivers shouldn’t let the goal intimidate them.
“Don’t let that number overwhelm you; if you just read one time a day for three years, you’re going to get there,” Polk said. “If they’re at Grandma’s house … or at day care, that counts, too. Don’t let that big number scare you; it’s actually easier than you think.”
Gabriel’s favorite book is one he got for Christmas about animals, and he wants to read it every night, Bayless said, along with other books.
At this rate, Gabriel will hit 1,000 books long before the first day of kindergarten.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.