Raising Readers in Story County

Raising Readers in Story County aims to improve language and literacy development in children from birth to age eight and nurture healthy parent-child relationships.  Raising Readers has many programs focused on babies and their families from birth through elementary school.  Some of their flagship programs include a Super K program to help prepare young children for kindergarten and Reading Corners all over the county for people to relax in a rocking chair and enjoy a book in a public reception area.  Volunteers read to children in the Reading Corners and at Storytime provided after school for those in subsidized housing that often don’t have the access to books or opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities.  Raising Readers has given out over 10,000 books each year, many through their Reach Out and Read program offered in pediatric doctor’s offices to utilize books as a tool for assessing developmental milestones and provide free books to families to enjoy with their child from 6 months to 5 years old.  The Raising Readers team also provides an array of information and teaches parenting classes to help raise a better reader.

To provide greater access to books for those children in Story County, they have set up dozens of Little Free libraries that look like an assortment of books held in a birdhouse available for anyone in the area to take or leave a book free of charge.  Their annual Step Into Storybooks events are an opportunity to attract thousands of people in the Story County area to participate in an assortment of activities around different books with a variety of volunteers in costume.  This is a fun filled event for the whole family, where every child gets to take home a book and positive memories around the joy of reading.

To learn more visit raising-readers.org