Parents can sign their kids up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. It’s an early literacy program launched by Dolly Parton, in honor of her father, who she said was smart and hardworking but never learned how to read or write. It’s presented by Women United with United Way of the Yampa Valley.
It’s for kids ages birth to five.
When you register, your child will receive a free, age-appropriate, high-quality book mailed to your home every month.
Then, when your child’s first book arrives, we ask that you:
- read to your child at least five days per week
- read books multiple times
- snuggle
- ask questions
- notice letters
- make sounds
- HAVE FUN!
A love of reading is the best treat you can give your young child.
Look for the United Way tent at the Halloween Stroll in downtown Steamboat Springs and you can sign up there as well.
Here is the press release from Women United with United Way of the Yampa Valley; Oct. 26, 2023.
Treat Your Child to FREE Books
The kids are back in school, leaves are beginning to turn and, before you know it, it will be time for trick or treating. The best treat you can give your little one is a love of reading. Thanks to Women United of the United Way of the Yampa Valley, that is really easy to do. You see, Women United members sponsor the Dolly Parton Imagination Library (DPIL) here in Routt County.
The Dolly Parton Imagination Library is an early literacy program that was launched by Dolly Parton in 1995 to honor her father who was smart and hardworking but never learned how to read or write. The program is meant to give children from all walks of life, both in the United States and around the world, a chance that Dolly’s father never had. It is geared to children from birth to age 5.
To date, over 200 million books have been gifted to young children. If your child is not one of them, Women United invites you to register your child for free today by going to https://imaginationlibrary.com.
When you register for the program your child will receive a FREE age-appropriate, high-quality book mailed directly your home address every month from birth to age five. The books are selected by a team of early literacy professionals at the Dollywood Foundation and include two bilingual titles annually. Even if you have one child registered for the program or an older child who has graduated from the program, we encourage you to register your younger child because the books change from year to year except for the first and last book. We would like every child to have their own special library by the time they are ready for kindergarten. If you did not register your child at birth, that is okay. You can register any time up until 4 months before your child’s 5th birthday. Please note that it takes approximately 8 weeks for the first book to arrive.
Research has shown that ninety percent of physical brain development occurs in the first three years of life. During this time a baby forms over 1 million new neural connections per second. According to an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics reading aloud to children at a young age can positively impact their brain development. When preschool children listen to stories, it activates the areas of their brains that are associated with processing images and narrative comprehension.
When parents and caregivers read to their children, it also exposes them to a larger, more diverse vocabulary and greater variety of sentence structures than just talking to them. Simple tasks such as looking at pictures in the books and reading aloud together not only support literacy growth, but also build a special bond and support a child’s social and emotional development.
According to the National Commission on Reading, “The single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.”
Dolly Parton believes that if you can read, you can do anything, dream anything, and be anything. With that in mind, Women United members hope that you will register your child for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library today by going to https://imaginationlibrary.com. Then, when your child’s first book arrives, we ask that you:
- read to your child at least five days per week
- read books multiple times
- snuggle
- ask questions
- notice letters
- make sounds
- HAVE FUN!
A love of reading is the best treat you can give your young child.