By BECKY IWEN
Sweetwater County Library System
Raising a young child can be one of the most trying and enjoyable jobs many parents and caregivers face today.
The Sweetwater County Library would like to help you share a love of reading and books with a variety of early literacy tools.
A new, free text service is available to parents in Sweetwater County and across Wyoming. Called Ready4K, parents can subscribe to the service to receive fun tips and facts on how to boost children’s learning and prepare them for kindergarten. The tips and facts will be delivered right to the subscriber’s phone.
“This is an excellent and easy resource to complement early literacy efforts at libraries,” Valerie Maginnis, Director of Teton County Library, said in a press release. which is leading efforts to make the texting service available in Teton County. “Along with story times, toddler times, picture-book collections and statewide resources like the BookFlix storytelling database, our library is excited to add Ready4K to our early literacy toolbox. We highly encourage families to enroll.”
According to a press release from the Teton County Library, “the University of Wyoming’s Literacy Research Center and Clinic teamed up with Stanford University to develop and research Ready4K to make this service available in Wyoming. Research shows that receiving these helpful texts can significantly increase children’s learning.”
Parents and caregivers with children, ages 3 to 5, are invited to sign up for the free service, which provides three texts per week. Statewide organizations, including the Wyoming Library Association and Wyoming Head Start Association, are supporting outreach efforts to parents of preschoolers and kindergarteners. The service is available in English and Spanish.
How to sign up:
If your child is 3 years old, text R4K WY3 to 70138
If your child is 4 years old, text R4K WY4 to 70138
If your child is in kindergarten, text R4K WY5 to 70138
For Spanish, simply add an “E” to the end of the text:
If your child is 3 years old, text R4K WY3E to 70138
If your child is 4 years old, text R4K WY4E to 70138
If your child is in kindergarten, text R4K WY5E to 70138
Along with this new texting service, every Monday morning at 10:30am the library hosts Toddler Time. For children 0-2 years of age, we encourage learning through stories, finger plays, baby sign language, shared reading and song. This lap sit program supports early literacy and language skills in infants and babies. Every exposure to seeing or hearing words is laying the groundwork for future skills. Older siblings are welcome and encouraged to be a great example to younger siblings.
On Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. children ages 3 to 6 years old discover new books and engage learning preschool skills at Ready, Set, Read. We incorporate books and activity stations focusing on letters, numbers, social skills and other early literacy activities.
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