Teens are already busy and stressed, but teen parents are facing even more challenges and stressors. Teen parents may be so overwhelmed with their new responsibilities that they may be less likely to seek out information on how to prepare their babies for school success. By bringing the ECRR2 skills directly to parents during the school day, and then modeling those skills during storytime, we are educating parents that may not otherwise have the opportunity to learn these important skills.

Using videos, games and hands-on activities during monthly visits to the classroom, the ECRR2 skills are presented in an easy-to-understand manner. Skills are reinforced and modeled during monthly storytimes with the students and their children at the school child care. This partnership offers the Library a unique opportunity to reach out to an audience that may not otherwise use the Library. We’re able to share our resources, introduce storytime, support their interests both as teens and as parents, and hopefully create long lasting relationships between the Library and these young families.

With this partnership, we are helping young parents understand how best to prepare their children for school, hopefully increasing those children’s chances of success later in life and fostering a love of early literacy for parents and children. The program also helps model parent-child engagement, showing the teens that engagement can be as fun and easy as talking and singing. A number of students have visited the library’s Early Learning Center as a result of this program.