As a parent of four kids, I know that children’s literacy is of utmost importance. I also know that it is not easy in our modern world of screens everywhere. I know genetically my kids are not all made up exactly the same and therefore reading comes easy to some and not as easy to others. That is where the community library comes to the forefront in our family. My children don’t always love to read, nor do they always want to go to the library, but when I get them there they almost always find something of interest to them.
I have made it our weekly habit, since they were babies, to go to the library in the name of literacy for my kids, and I will be honest it is mainly due to cost. Nowhere else can I expose my children to such vast free resources as at the library.
In my experience in the elementary school setting, with four kids spanning grades K-5, I find that many of the struggling readers in my kids’ schools have the lowest socioeconomic status. This is what makes the library so essential to our community. The library is a place children of any age or economic level can come and experience books beyond their imagination. With great leadership in the library putting on free events and programming that encourage children to come and experience, they might just pick up a book along the way.
When it comes to my own children, anything I can do to get them into the doors of the library is going to be beneficial to their overall love of reading. No matter who you are and what level of reader you are, you can always find something of interest once in the building. It is very hard to find the time in the busy day to day of all of the other noise and choices that kids have these days, but when I put it on the calendar as a weekly event I can see the lifelong reading benefits in my children.
Katie Webster