SnuggL'Up With A Good Book and Read With Your Child Early Literacy Program

The National Commission on Reading has written, "the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children."

Further research also reveals that when young children experience warm and close contact with their parent, caregiver or mentor when they are being read to, they develop more positive attitudes towards reading.

In order for young children to succeed, we must find ways to encourage parents and caregivers to read to their children and, as the child moves on to self reading, perpetuate the feelings of comfort, security, joy and closeness so that the child will naturally want to read on their own and often. In addition, we must encourage the parent to increase their own frequency of independent reading in order to elevate their self-esteem levels and, therefore, improve their parenting skills and further their own goals for future success.

The SnuggL'Up With a Good Book and Read With Your Child Early Literacy Program has been created to help the child and parent improve literacy and language arts skills, spark the desire for the child and parent to read independently, assist in the social/emotional growth of both the child and parent and strengthen the parent/child bond.

Each parent or caregiver/child duo will also be given a SnuggL'Up pillow to cuddle and hug while they read together. Multiple award winning SnuggL'Up pillow products have been shown to provide feelings of comfort and security to children in both clinical and home settings. The parent holds their child and reads to her while the child cuddles their own SnuggL'Up pillow.

The simple acts of being read to while sitting a parent's lap and cuddling with a SnuggL'Up will enable the child to make the connection between comfort, security, a positive and nurturing environment and reading. These connections will be incorporated into the reading experience with the recognition that it will further encourage the child to read more often and independently outside of the program setting. This is especially important for young boys and their fathers, as cuddling a SnuggL'Up pillow does not have the same stigma that a doll or stuffed animal may have for boys and their dads.

Additionally, the synergy of experiencing comfort and security while cuddling a child with a SnuggL'Up, combined with the simple joy of reading to a child who loves them will create an additional level of reading enjoyment for the parent. This in turn will then encourage the parent to read independently.

Each parent/child unit will be given 2 books, a SnuggL'Up pillow and an easy-to-follow Parent brochure. The overall experience of the SnuggL'Up With A Good Book and Read With Your Child program at Early Childhood programs and at-risk early literacy program settings will help guild the child towards independent reading and give them an advantage when entering school.

The ultimate goal of the SnuggL'Up With a Good Book and Read With Your Child Early Literacy Program is to create a family unit that embraces reading, both together and independently, and aspires to achieve personal and familial goals that will make them successful both on a personal and professional level.