Bright Minds recently completed a summer literacy initiative that provided 300 children (0-4 year olds) at 30 Howard County childcare providers with diverse literacy resources, exposure, and support for children.
The Maryland Department of Education tracks kindergarten readiness rates across Maryland, and in recent years, only 54% of Howard County children are entering their first year of school with important foundational skills for kindergarten. Earlier this year, Bright Minds was grateful to receive a grant from Howard County Government’s Local Children’s Board focused on increasing early childhood literacy exposure. In partnership with the Office of Children and Families and Howard County Family Child Care Association, Bright Minds worked to identify 30 in-home childcare providers in underserved neighborhoods and provide them with diversity-based books and literacy assessment tools to assess reading behaviors and increase literacy exposure.
This initiative built on Bright Minds’ existing Read WIth Me program that supports early literacy by providing one book per month to children (aged 0-5 years old) to encourage a love of reading and provide important earlier literacy exposure. Bright Minds is the Howard County affiliate for the nationally renowned Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and partners with more than 15 community partners in Howard County to identify and enroll children in the program. Currently, 2,134 children are enrolled in the program and 1,181 have graduated from the program.
During the summer literacy initiative, Bright Minds staff and volunteers identified, sourced, and packaged books for distribution throughout Howard County. Bright Minds disseminated 840 diversity-based books (24 books per kit) of diverse and inclusive Imagination Library books representative of all age groups. Additionally, The Reading House, an emergent literacy screening tool, was provided to allow caregivers and parents to identify children at risk for learning difficulties and guide intervention before kindergarten.
“Dropping of the reading kits to childcare providers was an uplifting experience,” said Bright Minds Program Manager Cheryl Johnson. “Children were absolutely thrilled to see the new books and immediately wanted to spend time holding, playing with, and reading the new books. The providers were often initially confused about the opportunity to receive free books, but they were incredibly effusive in their excitement and appreciation to be included in this literacy effort.”
The engagement of childcare providers was so well received that Howard County’s Office of Children and Family is looking to expand this effort to all family child care providers in the county.
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To learn more about Bright Minds’ Read With Me program, visit: Literacy & School Readiness. Contributions to the Read With Me program can be made via our website at DONATE, or by check to the Bright Minds Foundation, 10910 Clarksville Pike, Ellicott City, MD 21042. Please designate Read With Me in the comment field or memo line.
About Bright Minds Foundation
Bright Minds Foundation is the Howard County public schools education foundation. We work to ensure each child in Howard County has access to the education, resources, and opportunities they need to succeed at school and in life. We do this by bringing together community support for programs and initiatives that increase education access, equity, and innovation. Bright Minds programs respond to the urgent and ongoing needs of children in four areas: digital inclusion, literacy & kindergarten readiness, college access, and teacher support & classroom innovation. To learn more and contribute, please visit brightmindsfoundation.org/donate.
