HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – Plant a Seed Read is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year in providing literacy activities for children ages 0-5 in Hill County.
Executive Program Director Lorraine Verploegen said their program is coupled with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which provides one free age appropriate book a month to participating families.
“Our promotion is for families to read aloud to their children from birth, and this time is very important in a child’s growth, because the brain grows close to 90 percent of its potential in the first three years. So, to stimulate that growth is by reading aloud those stories.”
Verploegen said reading these stories aloud to children stimulates their cognitive development and better prepares them for that first day of kindergarten.
“By reading aloud, this stimulates language with your child. You’re starting to stimulate comprehension. The children start, after they listen to a story many times, to do a retelling which is a very big part of comprehension. Children are learning about reading but also, you’re learning about your child in how they’re growing. So, this is what we want to promote is for the children to feel successful that first day of kindergarten.”
Verploegen said the children who participate get really into it and are excited to get their new book every month.
“One mother told me one of her boys went out to get the mail and came back so excited because his book was there and he ripped off the cellophane and she had a picture of him squatting down and paging through it looking at the pictures before she read it. And that’s one of the things as a reading specialist we have children do, you know those emergent readers, is to look through the book at the pictures to see what the story might be about, and we talk about that. So, that when they come to tricky words, they can kind of figure out well the story was about such and such and then they start using their strategies to figure it out. ”
Verploegen said this has been fun for her because she always felt like something was missing.
“As a reading specialist, I felt something was missing and it was that first five years of life that we needed to just explore books with kiddos. When you see a one-year-old sitting on the floor with books around him, just looking through the books, you know he’s found something that’s common for him and that he enjoys to do as well.”
Children and families may participate in this program for free but, if one wishes to sponsor a family it is $30 a year. This fee provides a child with one new book every month.
For more information on how to participate visit plantaseedreadmt.org.
