Reading is Fundamental

I found another website that has a program for helping parents. This program is called Reading is Fundamental (RIF). It is similar to the Parents as Teachers program in that it has educational programs for parents on how to read to their children. According to the website, on 1999 only 53% of children were read to by their parents. No wonder so many children hate reading! If a child's first experience with text is in a classroom where the text is chosen by the teacher for a specific purpose, it may be difficult for the child to experience joy from reading. However, if reading is experienced at a young age as a pleasurable experience, the child may be more inclined to read and further develop their literacy skills.

At this point, I am glad that I have found all of these resources on environmental literacy. I was concerned that I would find tons of websites that said literacy is a problem because of environmental factors. Although I have found those sites, I have also discovered websites that are working to change the situation. And essentially, as a teacher, those are the websites and resources I want to access so I can pass it on to parents.

PS. On the Parents as Teachers site, there is a map of the US. If you click on a state, it will list all of the programs where Parents as Teachers is facilitated. Helpful :)