1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

Early Literacy Initiative

Waverly Public Library staff has developed an ongoing early literacy initiative called 1KB4K (1000 Books Before Kindergarten) that began in February 2016. This multiyear project encourages parents to read aloud at least 1000 books with their children before they enter school. The program, open to any patron under kindergarten, has an initial goal of reaching and involving 50 children during the first year and it directly correlates with our Library’s mission to “grow young readers”.

Project Goals include:

• Introduce a fun method to encourage families to read aloud to their young children
• Introduce children to a wide range of excellent books to promote pre-literacy so children enter school ready to learn
• Encourage regular library use by families and enhance our already existing outreach to daycares and preschools

Families receive a log sheet to record the first 100 books read to the child. On the backside of the logs are other fun literacy building activities for families to try at home. Families are encouraged to return to the library every time they finish reading and listening to 100 books.

Children obtain new logs and congratulatory stickers each time they finish a 100-level. They place the sticker on a part of a giant Rainbow Reading Garden in the children section of the library to show the community how much reading is being done. At the milestones of completing 100 books they receive a library bag, and at completion of 500 books they receive a finger puppet. The culminating prize is a book and certificate the child can keep.

A key aspect of the project is to connect with schools, hospitals, daycares, Head Start, MOPS, and other local groups that reach out to and work with families to support the program so it truly reaches its intended goals. We hope working with these partners will help us get the word out about the importance of these early learning years and help us achieve our goal of children entering their formal schooling years with a rich background of literacy tools – language, visual literacy, grammar, shared literacy – that help them to be “ready-to-learn”.

The Waverly Public Library Staff

1KB4K Documents:

Level 100 Log

Parent Letter

Registration Card