Delaware firms partner to promote early childhood literacy
Stop Read Go and Read Aloud Delaware are working together to nurture early literacy development in Delaware’s preschoolers. And they are doing it one spoonful at a time – literally.
Stop Read Go, a Delaware LLC, donated hundreds of children’s utensil sets April 20 to Read Aloud Delaware to be distributed to parents and child care centers in Delaware.
“Many thanks to Stop Read Go for donating 250 of their labeled cutlery sets for kids! We will be sure to get these in the hands of families participating in LENA and our partner child care centers,” said James Spadola, Read Aloud Delaware executive director.
This is part of Stop Read Go’s initiative called Spoonfuls of Literacy to raise awareness and educate parents, grandparents, caregivers and early childhood educators on the importance of early literacy. Johanna Rodionova, Stop Read Go’s founder and spokesperson, said, “We want to make reading part of a child’s daily diet, which can be accomplished by feeding them a few spoonfuls of words a day.”
When asked what do children’s utensils have to do with early literacy, she explains, “The utensils include a spoon, a fork and a knife, each labeled with the words ‘spoon,’ ‘fork’ and ‘knife.’ Even though this may sound obvious to an adult, it is not so obvious to a baby, a toddler or a preschooler who just arrived into this world a couple of months or years ago. Children experience the world through their senses, and we are there to help them make sense of that information. By making the words tangible and intuitive to them, we remove the guesswork and the confusion they might feel whenever they encounter these strange-looking symbols we call letters and words.”
The goal is to expose children to the written language from a very early age and on a daily basis. Ensuring that each Delaware preschooler is regularly read to one on one is Read Aloud Delaware’s No. 1 priority. Reading books to children should be on every parent’s daily to-do list. But sometimes life gets busy and there are lots of other tasks that need to get done around the house. This can result in a missed or shortened reading session. This is one of the reasons Read Aloud Delaware has volunteers reading to preschool children in over 100 statewide locations. For the past year, due to COVID-19, the volunteers have been uploading videos to read to the kids online.
Stop Read Go is taking it a step further by providing ways for parents, grandparents and teachers to incorporate reading into their child’s daily routines and activities. “There is a learning opportunity everywhere you look, everywhere you go, and every time of day. In the kitchen, in the bedroom, even in the bathroom,” Rodionova said. “In addition to our labeled utensils, we also have labeled clothes, labeled toothbrushes and adhesive labels to stick all over the house. Parents can label the door, the table, the chair, and every time they walk by or use a labeled object, they can read it aloud to their child. This way, the child gets to not only see the word, hear the word, but also understand the word, all at the same time!”
Stop Read Go and Read Aloud Delaware have a shared mission to end childhood illiteracy. For more information, visit StopReadGo.com and ReadAloudDelaware.org.
