DiscoverBooks provides a safe space for teen parents to learn how to sustain their child's education from an early age. The program also creates a caring and encouraging community of teen parents and children that will support them as the parents continue to pursue their high school diploma.
Teen parents participate in a weekly after-school workshop, developing read-aloud skills and a deeper understanding of early literacy. Each week involves a new and engaging activity to teach a different skill set to the parents, and prepare the children for school. The program runs eight weeks, and each week the family goes home with several books to build their home library. At the end of the program each parent will receive an activity kit filled with everything they need to do these activities again with their child.
The goal is to foster a love of reading in both parent and child to best support their overall education. Each additional year of schooling boosts not only boosts a parent's earning ability, but increases the years a child will stay in school. As parents discover the aspirations they have for their children and learn how to encourage their children to succeed, they also learn of the responsibility they have to continue their own education and the amazing opportunity they have to be their child's first teacher.A part of this program is run as part of the City of Springfield's Reading Success by 4th Grade initiative. Learn more about this and other early literacy programs here: http://www.readby4thgrade.com/