Budding Readers is an emergent literacy program for three-year-old children who attend a subsidized child care center or a public elementary school Pre-K program in Palm Beach County. Funded by the Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County, the program assigns Reading Partners to partnership sites where the children are matched with a Reading Partner for a weekly one-to-one interactive reading session. Reading activities during these weekly sessions support the oral language and emergent literacy skill development for these young "budding readers."
Reading Partners work with their assigned children each week to help them develop and increase the oral language and emergent literacy skills that are the foundational components needed to build future academic success. Oral language and emergent literacy skill development are incorporated into the reading and discussion of age-appropriate books with the children during their weekly book sharing sessions. Children also receive books from their Reading Partners to keep and begin a personal home library that are provided by the the PBC Literacy Coalition.
Through the Budding Readers program, Reading Partners play an important role in the development of young children by providing the one-to-one time needed to help ensure that preschool children from low-income households enter kindergarten just as eager and ready to learn as their more advantaged classmates.
The Budding Readers program helps young children blossom into life-long lovers of books, reading and learning.
