Helping Marin County’s Isolated and Under-Served Preschoolers Develop School Readiness Skills
Imagine not being able to read well enough to understand that rental agreement you must sign to have a place to live. Or not being able to adequately fill out a job application. Or even not being able to read to your children.Low literacy skills negatively impact millions of people in the US.
You can help break the cycle and negative results of poor literacy right here in Marin County by donating new and gently used preschool children’s books to support the work of the Marin Literacy Program’s F.L.A.G.ship (which stands for Families Learning And Growing) mobile classroom.
The F.L.A.G.ship is a big, brightly painted bus, operated by the Marin Literacy Program. They provide free bilingual story times, songs, art projects and school readiness activities for families with children, from birth to 5 years old, who live in isolated and under-served areas of Marin County. In addition to working with the children and their caregivers to develop school readiness skills, staff on board the bus also act as an important link between these families and other valuable community resources. The bus makes weekly visits to more than a dozen sites throughout Marin.
Preschool reading skills help to bridge achievement gaps, especially among at risk children. Even as preschoolers, children develop literacy and vocabulary skills which last a lifetime. Reading to children is also an excellent opportunity for family members to bond with one another. In addition, adults with low literacy levels often will seek help to be able to read to children they care for, and, in doing so, can improve their own literacy skills in this non-threatening environment.
What’s Going On
One of the F.L.A.G.ship’s goals is to provide the preschool aged children they serve with free, high-quality books for their home libraries.I am organizing a book drive to provide the F.L.A.G.ship with new and gently used books to support their literacy program and help them meet their goal to provide children in the program with one book each month to keep for their own home libraries. With books of their own at home, children can more easily continue developing pre-reading and early reading skills with their families. I am undertaking this project to serve my community as part of my activities toward earning the Boy Scout Rank of Eagle.
The book drive will take place during the month of May 2010.
Click here to learn how you can help…
