Charleston County children will help break a world record Thursday, October 6 as they join two million children nationwide reading the same book on the same day in Jumpstart's Read for the Record initiative, a project designed to draw attention to the importance of reading.
Charleston County Public Library is hosting 10 Read for the Record events Thursday to read this year's book - Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. To help promote this community-wide event and encourage attendance, the Library partnered with the City of Charleston Mayor's Office for Children, Youth and Families to secure special guest readers at three branches -- Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, Charleston City Police Chief Greg Mullen and WCBD-TV 2 News Anchor Carolyn Murray.
The Jumpstart mission is to help every child develop language, literacy and social skills so they will be ready to enter school. Jumpstart's mission dovetails with CCPL's expanded initiatives to reach preschool students and families, an effort that grew dramatically 10 months ago when the Library added more than 100 PLAY (Public Libraries and You) programs every month specifically to reach families on Saturdays and in the evenings. All together, the Library offers about 250 children's programs each month at its 16 locations.
Jumpstart works with We Give Books, a digital reading and philanthropic initiative of the Pearson Foundation and Penguin Books, to coordinate the annual Read for the Record event. They select a book, and copies are donated to participants across the country. The goal of the annual one-day reading celebration is to raise awareness of America's early education achievement gap.
According to Jumpstart, research shows that:
• one in three American children enter kindergarten without the basic skills needed, and most children never catch up;
• children from low-income neighborhoods are more likely to fail in school because they don't have access to high quality early education;
• children from low-income neighborhoods generally start kindergarten 60% behind their wealthier peers; and
• children who complete quality early education programs do better in school and are less likely to dropout, be arrested, repeat grades or require special education.
For a complete list of locations in Charleston, visit the CCPL.org web site.
