Thank you for signing up to be a Teach My Kid to Read liaison to your local library and being a literacy first responder in your local community!
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You are part of a national network of volunteers who spread awareness about how to effectively teach reading to children based on decades of research and who advocate for families to have the resources and books they need to implement effective reading instruction for their children. This page provides a lot of information.
Library work takes place all year long, but annually in October, in observance of Dyslexia Awareness Month, we encourage libraries to set up displays of decodable books and literacy resources to spread information about literacy and reading challenges like dyslexia. Working with your library to create awareness of dyslexia is a great way to begin coordinating literacy outreach efforts.
If you don’t work with a library and you want to provide outreach through a little free library or in partnership with other nonprofits, the following tools will help you get started!
For Dyslexia Awareness Month 2022, we provide the following resources to help public libraries, school libraries, and volunteers providing independent outreach create awareness and offer tools to help all kids learn to read:
2022 Road to Decode Program Guide
Dyslexia Awareness Month Toolkit
Decodable Book Spine Sticker Template
To ensure all volunteers are prepared and confident in our message, we ask that you follow these steps in becoming a Teach My Kid to Read library liaison:
- Learn about the statistics on literacy in our nation today, how reading instruction based on research and science works in teaching children how to read, and watch our videos on ways families and caregivers can support their child in learning to read.
- Read about our mission, our Road to Decode program, and the resources we recommend and provide to libraries and communities. In addition, watch this video to learn about why we advocate for the use of decodable books in teaching reading.
- Visit your library and do some research – search for resources like decodable books, information guides or packets that explain the science of reading, parent guides to reading instruction and literacy intervention, and events that promote or model explicit, structured reading methods. Learn how your school system teaches reading and how the public library can supplement and support the school.
- Introduce yourself to your local librarian via email using our template letter. The letter was written by a TMKTR volunteer who worked with her local library and community to create a collection of decodable books so her daughter would have books she could read.
- Present our Teach My Kid to Read brochure and explain our mission to offer community literacy solutions at the library. Share your personal story and why you hope to be a Teach My Kid to Read partner to your local library and community. Encourage librarians to sign up for our free programming, and join our Facebook group, Let’s Talk Decodable Books and Literacy Resources, to learn which decodable books and literacy resources other librarians recommend. You can write your name, and contact information on the brochure should the librarian be interested in learning more about us.
These are key talking points you can use when meeting with a librarian or community leader:
- Literacy rates are very low in this country – two-thirds of all 4th graders in the U.S. are not reading on grade level. Thus, literacy is a national crisis affecting millions of children, not just the twenty percent with dyslexia or other reading challenges.
- Librarians can be literacy first-responders for all types of readers, offering books and guides to parents and caregivers that explain the fundamentals of effective reading instruction.
- Teach My Kid to Read works to spread awareness about how children learn to read and where resources like decodable books fit so librarians can better serve families and caregivers in their communities.
- Teach My Kid to Read works closely with many decodable book publishers, so it’s easier for libraries to access the books. In addition, Teach My Kid to Read helps with access through donations of decodable books and discounts that publishers offer libraries through our programming.
- Libraries can broaden their reach by creating a “Literacy Corner” or “Road to Reading” section of the library where parents and caregivers can learn how systematic reading instruction helps all children learn to read, find decodable books, and other resources to build literacy skills.
- Libraries can model effective ways to teach reading through Storytime activities, hosting information sessions for families on explicit reading instruction and intervention, offering tours of the library’s resources on structured literacy and decodable books, joining the Road to Decode program, and establishing an annual Teach My Kid to Read Literacy at the Library Day.
- With a growing homeschool population, decodable book sections provide homeschool families with essential and accessible tools to teach reading to their children.
- For under-resourced libraries interested in joining our Road to Decode program and setting up a Road to Decode section of their library, consider making a donation of our early literacy decodable starter kits. The kits are available in our store. Many libraries offer the kits for cataloging, and some libraries provide them for free at community outreach events. You can also consider donating complete sets of decodable books that families can use at your library. For now, contact us about accessing the kits and decodable books for donations.
- Offer to partner with your library to promote literacy at outreach events in other community settings. You can meet with parents, hand out brochures, show samples of decodable books, and answer questions about learning to read or finding help for striving readers. Teach My Kid to Read can support you in coordinating events with your library and recommending resources to catalog. You can post pictures of these events on the Teach My Kid to Read Instagram page!
- You can also offer your time to your local library and host Storytime, using our Roadmap to Reading to model strategies in teaching core reading skills to children.
- Encourage your library and other community members to participate in our Dr. Richard E. Schutz Walk for Community Literacy Solutions, or Family Literacy Day in October, to support our mission and spread awareness about how all children can learn to read, from early readers to older, striving readers. And please be sure to post pictures of these events on the Teach My Kid to Read Instagram page!
- Look out for regular newsletters with the latest developments in our programming and outreach efforts, and attend our biannual virtual meeting of volunteers to connect and learn how others across the country are supporting their libraries in becoming community literacy hubs.
If you need assistance contacting your library, please reach out, and we will connect you with someone who can help.