Better Beginnings – Much More Than a Gift Book Program!
Better Beginnings provides a series of linked strategies in an early intervention program to open the door for families to literacy and life-long learning. These strategies have been designed to be flexible and varied enough to connect with all families, including those that do not share a reading culture and whose children are at the greatest risk of not developing good early literacy skills.
The funding support from the Rio Tinto WA Future Fund and the State Government of WA has allowed the State Library to further develop the Better Beginnings Strategies in support of the State-wide roll out through the:
A Better Beginnings Parent Reading Kit given to all new parents containing a gift board book for their new born baby as well as information for parents to them in giving their children a love of reading, rhyming and singing.
The “Better Beginnings Parent Reading Kit” are given to parents of all babies at their six week health check by their local community health nurses or they can be picked up from their local public library.
- Local Public Library Baby Rhyme Times and Parent Workshops build on the message in the “Better Beginnings Parent Reading Kit” by linking families to public libraries and the ongoing support they can give families to enjoy books with their babies. This includes for instance,
- Help in selecting books suitable for baby and for parents
- Baby-rhyme time sessions at the library for parents and their children introducing them to stories, rhymes and games to use with their baby; as well as,
- Parent workshops covering topics like speech and language development, child development, nutrition and parenting with health professional partners.
The State Library of WA supports the public library network in delivery of these early literacy programs through training and facilitating best practice sharing.
- Better Beginnings Story Time Boxes have been developed by the State Library of WA and provided to all our public library partners to assist them in their Better Beginnings activities. These include a collection of picture books, rhymes and songs following several fun themes and include a range of puppets, felt boards and activities to help explore these.
As well as using them in-house, public libraries can loan the Better Beginnings Story Time boxes to community agencies, playgroups and other carer’s to support them in sharing stories with children.
- Family Reading Centres and Parent Resources are promoted as part of Better Beginnings through supporting public libraries to establish dedicated Family Reading Centres or to promote their parent resources. All public libraries have in their collections resources specifically for parents, covering topics from baby nutrition to early childhood to children’s parties.
Family Reading Centres provide a family-centered environment by bringing together a wide range of print & media resources to support parents as well as books, toys, videos and computers for children. In many cases public libraries have successfully sought Early Years funding from the State Government of WA to enable them to set up their Family Reading Centres within their library.
- The Better Beginnings Website will be developed and continue to grow to provide news and information for parents, teachers and librarians about early literacy as well as links to games and activities for children to encourage an interest in books and stories.
- Marketing and promotion of the Better Beginnings message of the importance of early literacy to the wider community and supporting public library partners in their Better Beginnings marketing through a style and template guide CD.
- A Better Beginnings Handbook and electronic training module has been developed to support partners working on the project. These provide a complete guide to the responsibilities of all partners and samples and templates to follow in delivering the project initiatives.
- Ongoing provision of training and best practice sharing in early literacy support programs being run in public libraries to support new parents, such as baby rhyme times.
- Ongoing evaluation of Better Beginnings and its success in supporting parents as their child’s first teacher.