BY: TINA GIBSON Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

What is it? Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a program that sends children a book a month, free of charge, from the time they are born until they are five years old. feature=player_embedded feature=player_embedded

Dolly’s Vision In 1996 Dolly Parton's Imagination Library was launched. Its purpose was to benefit the children of her home county in East Tennessee. Dolly's vision was to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families by providing them with the gift of a specially selected book each month. By mailing high quality, age-appropriate books directly to their homes, she wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. She wanted to insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.

Making a Difference Dolly’s Imagination Library became so popular that in the year 2000 she announced that she would make the program available for replication to any community that was willing to partner with her to support it locally. Since the initial program launch in the United States, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library has gone from just a few dozen books to nearly 40,000,000 books mailed to children in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom! Currently over 1,600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 700,000 children each and every month.

Making a Difference Recently DPIL has partnered with American Printing House for the Blind, to make many of the books in the program available in Braille and audio format. This allows young blind and visually impaired children to benefit from these wonderful books as well. Already statistics and independent reports have shown Dolly Parton's Imagination Library drastically improves early childhood literacy for children enrolled in the program. Further studies have shown improved scores during early literacy testing.

Studies showed that between 66% and 75% of the families read more to their children after receiving the Imagination Library, and for 34% of the families, the Imagination Library was the primary source of books in the home.

In a recent survey in the United Kingdom, 80% of families were reading to their children 4 to 5 times a week after becoming recipients of the Imagination Library books. 50% of those parents had an increase in their own reading habits.

"By putting books in the hands of young children, this program has positively affected the attitudes and behaviors of parents and caregivers, showing a substantial increase in not only the number of books found in the home, but the time spent reading and interacting with the children." –LeCompte (United Way Executive Director)

Each series of books should contain certain characteristics specific to their age appropriateness including:

Year One Vision - bright, big, colorful Touch - board pages Rhyme and rhythm Simple - easy to use Minimal text - point and say Playful sound Nurture - attachment- lullaby themes

Year Two Continue concepts from year one and build upon them Repetition and predictability - generate language Motor skills “Self-help” activities - things children can do, things familiar in their daily life Use of real photo illustration Body awareness Nursery rhymes Colors, letters, numbers

Year Three Wordless books - build your own story (reader and child) Values and character Issues - fear, conflict, love, safety Colors, letters, numbers Nursery rhymes

Year Four More complex stories - hero, complication, resolution Diversity of others - faces, environment - OK to be different Play, humor, fun Nursery rhymes and poetry

Year Five School preparation and readiness Use rebus (pictures used for words) Science - non-fiction Folk tales Thank you, appreciation Rhymes and poetry List of books

Registration You can register your child as early as birth. You must be child’s parent or legal guardian in order to register them. Information needed is: Address, child’s name and date of birth, and parent’s name.

Get Involved “There is simply no limit on how far we can take this program and to what ends of the earth, but it is an absolute impossibility without your help. If your community or a community that you are aware of doesn't yet offer this proven early childhood literacy program, then we challenge you to Get Involved!” You can also go to there website and donate money at anytime to support the program.

carrieroer.blogspot.com northescambia.com darekids.org library/imagination-library-book-list/ mtpleasantlib.org