Real Men Read
Real Men Read is a reading program that aspires to mobilize volunteers in the community as readers in early learning centers across Howard and Tipton Counties to increase Kindergarten readiness. Our volunteers have a monthly reading commitment allowing the program to reach 200 children in fifteen local early learning centers.
Through Real Men Read, student’s age zero to five can register for a partner program, the Imagination Library. The Imagination Library fosters a love of reading among preschool children and their families by providing them with the gift of an age-appropriate book, each month.
The Imagination Library registration fees for Howard & Tipton County residents are paid for by the United Way through the Duke Energy Foundation in hopes to grow the number of in-home libraries and increase pre-literacy skills in three to five-year old’s.
Real Men Read and The Imagination Library are a small collaboration working towards a larger community goal of 75in5, which strives to increase the percentage of kindergartner’s ready for school to 75 percent by 2022.
Click here to sign your child up for Imagination Library!
Use the table below to learn more about age-appropriate books that help prepare your child for school.
When reading to your child, choose books that are bright, big and colorful. These characteristics will work on your child’s vision. Books that have interactive flaps, make playful sounds, rhyme and have minimal text on a page will make reading fun for your and your child.
When choosing books for your child at this age, continue concepts from year one and build upon them. Repetition and predictability generate language. Add in books about daily routines and topics that are familiar to your child. Books with real images, colors, letters, numbers and nursery rhymes are encouraged.
At age three, having books with no words allows you and your child to build your own story which will expand your child’s imagination. Focus on issue topics related to fear, conflict, love and safety. Books with values, characters, colors, letters, numbers and nursery rhymes are encouraged.
At age four, choose books with more complex stories – think hero, complication and resolution. Books with diversity of others including faces and environments allows your child to understand that it is OK to be different. It’s important to add in books that are playful, humorous and fun.
Your child is ready for school! Choose books that work on kindergarten readiness like folk tales, Science and non-fiction selections, poetry, books that use pictures for words, and understanding thank you and appreciation.
Bedtime Stories
Listen to bedtime stories from our Real Men Read volunteers, here!
We do not own rights to any of these book selections.
