Raising A Reader Aspen to Parachute empowers parents with knowledge and resources to cultivate their child's brain development during the critical early years by reading books aloud to grow vocabulary, strengthen parent/child bonds, and foster a lifelong love of learning.
Our mission is to foster early literacy bonds between children and their parents to ensure that all young children from Aspen to Parachute develop a love of books and the skills to become successful readers.
Raising A Reader programs improve reading readiness and early school success by providing books and encouraging an abundance of reading and positive verbal interaction among children and their parents. Parent-child bonds connected to learning help children develop the oral language skills, curiosity, secure attachment and cognitive capacity for academic and life success.
Raising A Reader Aspen to Parachute was founded in 2004 to help eliminate the achievement gap that develops in the first five years of life when children do not hear enough language and/or have inadequate access to storybooks and read-aloud time with a parent or caregiver. In numerous local schools from Carbondale to Parachute, fifty percent of children enter kindergarten lacking the basic oral language skills necessary for reading and school success. These children enter school at a tremendous disadvantage. They have been denied full developmental access during a foundational period of brain growth.
"We enjoy the new books each week. I like that there are many cultures and places in the world represented in your books. The books that you provide are ones that we wouldn't necessarily check out at the library, so we are exposed to new idea, language, and world views."
"We love the program. It has expanded our reading horizons and helped us spend more quality time together. We believe it has increased Oliver's enthusiasm for reading."
