VGCC Child Care Center celebrates Reading

The Child Care Center on Vance-Granville Community College’s Main Campus recently participated in a nationwide initiative to promote reading aloud to young children. March was observed as National Reading Awareness Month. In conjunction with that celebration, the non-profit organization, ReadAloud.org , launched a campaign to promote reading out loud for at least 15 minutes to every pre-kindergarten child, every day. The movement hopes to make this the new standard in child care.

In addition to the teachers at the VGCC child day care center, special guests took turns reading various books aloud for at least 15 minutes throughout March. Readers included VGCC faculty members, VGCC Library staff, parents of children enrolled at the center, and even the “Cat in the Hat” (Velj'wine McCall of Norlina).

According to ReadAloud.org, “Every time you read to your children, you are improving their learning advantage.” By age four, low-income children have heard an average 32 million fewer words than their higher-income peers. Even in higher-income households, nearly 40% of families do not read aloud every day.  The organization advocates that “when every child is read aloud to for 15 minutes every day from birth, more children will be ready to learn when they enter kindergarten, more children will have the literacy skills needed to succeed in school, and more children will be prepared for a productive and meaningful life after school.”

Above: The “Cat in the Hat” reads the Dr. Seuss book in which he features prominently to children at the VGCC Main Campus Child Care Center. (VGCC Photo)