Shared Beginnings

Shared Beginnings helps young parents develop their children’s early language and literacy skills.

A series of activities gives parents practice in reading aloud to their children and planning early learning experiences that stimulate language development in infants and toddlers. Parents also learn how to choose picture books that their children will enjoy.

Program Goals:

• Convey to young parents the importance of nurturing emergent literacy in their young children.
• Give young parents practice in a broad range of activities designed to foster early reading.
• Enable young parents to acquire the skills and confidence to teach their own children.
• Foster supportive relationships among young parents.
• Support young parents' own continuing education through special literacy activities designed for them.

The Shared Beginnings activity curriculum focuses on a variety of topics chosen based upon recent brain research. These topics include: talking, singing, rhyming and rocking, playing, going places, storytelling, choosing books, reading aloud, and writing and drawing.

At the start of a Shared Beginnings program, many young parent participants say they have few or no memories of being read to while growing up, and that books and other reading materials were not available in their homes. Their attitudes toward books and reading often range from awkward or detached to negative.

Yet when these parents begin seeing the results of reading with their children - "She wants to hear this story over and over," "He's trying to turn the pages," "She's taking books and pretending to read" - they are excited by their children's learning and proud of their own achievement in developing their children's language skills and readiness to read.

For more information visit: http://www.rif.org/what/sharedbeginnings/default.mspx