Donna Jean Yannuzzi, United Way of Greater Hazleton, Administrator of Finance and DPIL Coordinator, meeting Dolly Parton
What is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library?
• Preschool literacy program that provides children with a new, FREE, age-appropriate, hardcover book each month.
• Open to children from birth to five, regardless of socioeconomic status!
• Ensures that children will have quality books in the home.
• Inspires a love for reading and literacy.
Features
• Books are new, hard cover and age-appropriate.
• Books arrive in the mail in child’s name monthly.
• 7 Bilingual books
• Books with Reading Tips
• Expandable bookends (can be purchased)
• 10 new books added each year, 2 per age group.
• First book is The Little Engine That Could (includes a letter from Dolly. )
• Last book is Miss Bindergarten gets Ready for Kindergarten.
Book Selection Process
• Books are selected by the Imagination Library Committee comprised of educators, child development experts, child psychologists and childhood literacy professionals.
• Books are selected for their age-appropriateness, development level, accuracy, language level, diversity, usage of pictures and words, etc.
Benefits
• Promotes and encourages a love of reading among children.
• Helps ensure that children enter kindergarten with a strong ability to read and eagerness to learn.
• Strengthens the literacy level of your community.
• Promotes parent-child interaction and bonding.
• Provides FREE, high-quality, age-appropriate books to children.
• The program is open to ALL children from birth to age 5 who reside in the defined and sponsored community.
Research
• Effective at increasing time spent reading with children.
• Making children more interested in books.
• Making parents more comfortable reading to children.
• Increasing parent awareness of their children’s reading levels.
• High/Scope surveyed 800 families in three communities and focused on the use of books once they arrived in parent’s homes.
Undeliverable Book Opportunities
• redistribute books to childcare centers, healthcare clinics, correctional facility, shelters, food shelves, WIC sites…
• Utilize books as part of a display unit for businesses and at community events
• pick up at rural Post Offices
UWGH DPIL