1,000 Books Before Kindergarten has arrived at the Southgate Veterans Memorial Library!

Parents and caregivers, you are a child's first teacher and role model, and they need your help to succeed. Reading aloud to infants and children encourages social, emotional, and cognitive development and the library is here to help support your family on its reading journey! We have joined the multitudes of libraries that offer resources for this self led program to promote reading and bonding between caregivers and young ones. The concept is simple, read 1,000 books before your child starts kindergarten. Studies have shown that children that are read to at an early age have bigger vocabularies and are more successful when they start school. It may sound hard to get to 1,000, but if you read just one book a night you will have read 365 books in a year. That is 730 books in two years and 1,095 books in three years. If you consider that most children start kindergarten around 5 years of age, you have more time than you think to get them ready.

Stop in the library to sign up and grab your goodie bag to get started! The most important thing in your goodie bag will be your 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten booklet. You can use it, the online website, or the ReadSquared app to record how many books you have read together, and every time you reach a milestone you can come back to the library to collect a prize. Once you have reached 1,000 books you will be invited to our yearly celebration to commemorate this great achievement!