The New Year has arrived and many people have made New Year’s resolutions.  Here is one New Year’s resolution for families that doesn’t cost any money, takes only 20 minutes a day, and will have long lasting results for the children in the family:  Read to your child for 20 minutes a day.  Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, reports that there are many benefits when babies are read to by loving adults as part of their everyday life.  Among these are the development of a responsive, language-rich parent child relationship, promotion of a life-long love of books and learning, stimulation of the imagination and all the senses, and the development of the child’s attention span and memory.

One of the goals of the Cortland Area Communities That Care Coalition is to promote and foster programs that encourage healthy families and emphasize education.  The Family Reading Partnership of Cortland County helps meet this goal with its six programs which encourage reading to children right from birth and by making books available in all homes.  All babies born in the Cortland hospital receive The Very Hungry Caterpillar before they go home.  This is the Books at Birth program.  The Books to Grow On program, in cooperation with all pediatricians and family practice doctors in the county, gives children books at their well-child visits from 6 months to 4 years of age.  The Welcome to School program gives A Splendid Friend Indeed to all children when they register for kindergarten. 

There also are fifteen Bright Red Bookshelves around the county in various public locations where gently used books are available for families to take home.  In addition over 650 new books were distributed through Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, DSS and Loaves and Fishes for parents to give to their children during the recent holiday season.  These books were provided through the Gift of Family Reading program.  Book bags for transporting such treasures are available to borrow from Head Start locations.

In addition to the programs of the Family Reading Partnership, there are public libraries throughout Cortland County.  For example, Cortland Free Library has a wonderful children’s room where there are many opportunities to introduce children to the joy of books.  There is a story hour every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. just for preschoolers.  Check your local library website to find out what is available in your own community.

A wonderful gift idea for children at any time of year is to give them their very own library cards.  Then, follow up with a weekly visit to the library and allow them to choose their own books.  Not sure what books to read?  The librarian will be able to give lots of ideas.

Nancy Hatch is the FRP representative on the CACTC Board.  In additions, she is a retired elementary school librarian, a mother and a grandmother.