`WE WANT READERS FOR LIFE': RIVERSIDE REGIONAL LIBRARIES ENLIVEN AND ENHANCE CHILDREN'S READING CENTER

The Riverside Regional Libraries have been doing their part in bringing reading alive for hundreds of children in Scott and Cape Girardeau counties.

This was the first year Riverside has been a recipient of YELL funds, and they used that money to enliven and enhance the children's reading center, library director Jeff Roth said.

Besides ordering new books, Riverside brought in packages that include a storybook and cassette tape that children can listen to as the parents read them the book. The library also has puppets that are associated with certain books that allow children a tangible association to the story.

"We use them (the puppets) at story time to illustrate stories. It kind of involves them into the stories," Lynn Farrow, children's librarian at the Jackson Riverside Library, said. "It's something they can touch and use, and it breaks the ice. Sometimes they're a little bit scared when they first come in and they haven't been to story time before. If you bring out a puppet they just love them."

Farrow starts many children on their way to reading. She, some of the other librarians and many volunteers spend much of the summer reading and enlivening stories for children. From there, the children can check out their own books and bring them home for a family reading.

"It has been very successful," she said. "Another thing they like to do is when they're listening to the tapes they learn new words and they go along and think, 'Oh boy, I figured this out.'

"So it's kind of like giving them a little independence on the reading level."

That success, in part, has been attributed to YELL funds, Roth said.

"We really didn't have the resources (before the YELL grant)," he said. "That YELL money has really enabled us to expand on what we're doing."

Roth said the library made the decision last year when it was awarded the YELL grant to use the money for children's programs instead of adult education. Both he and Farrow said exposing children to reading early has a number of positive returns.

"Several studies found out when they go to school, if they've been read to or they've listened to other people reading to them then they do really well in school," Farrow said. "Their reading comprehension will catch up to their listening comprehension."

"We want readers for life," Roth said. "If a parent reads to their kid, the kid will be a reader. I think it's one of those things that's satisfying for everybody. You get to read to the kid, the kid gets to learn from it. It's a win-win situation."

Riverside's summer reading program brought in grandparents last year to read stories, which was beneficial to both reader and listener, Roth said. Farrow said it is important to start reading to children as early as possible.

"They say you should read to a child before it is born," she said. "The baby's listening."