Last week families and teachers from UrbanPromise School gathered together to celebrate literacy and to learn new strategies for reading aloud to children. Books Building Character started as a project for my graduate class in early childhood literacy at University of Delaware. Since I used to teach kindergarten at UPS and still volunteer at the school, I love when I’m able to use my graduate work to create something new for UrbanPromise. Books Building Character wouldn’t have been possible without an early childhood reading grant from Target. Through the grant, each family received five free books at the event, and we
established a lending library of fifty books with discussion guides that parents can check out and use with their children to discuss important topics like feelings, friendship, self-concept, and diversity. It was a fun and educational evening; parents were excited about the new reading strategies they learned, and children were excited to take home a tote bag of new books!
Alison Seefeldt
