Pantera Press funds Let’s Read literacy program for babies & toddlers in Claymore: opens June 28

The program will provide local families with special Let’s Read resources including tips and information on how to read to babies and toddlers, a suggested book list, a DVD demonstrating ways to read and have fun with books and an age appropriate book. The program is provided to the community free of charge, thanks to Pantera Press, as part of our 3-year national partnership with The Smith Family,.
 
Exposing children to books and reading in their pre-school years is thought to assist in the development of emergent literacy skills (the ability to identify and manipulate sounds), the building blocks that are needed to help children learn to read later in life. Let’s Read seeks to address research that has found that children who have not developed emergent literacy skills by school age are unlikely to catch up with their peers.

The Smith Family Learning for Life Team Leader Warunee Nuij said Let’s Read is a unique opportunity for Communities within the Claymore community to make a real investment in the future of our children.
 
‘It has taken a lot of planning and hard work to get to this stage and we’re thrilled to see it all come to fruition.  Our children will have the chance to be part of a new generation who are better placed to learn to read when they reach school,” Warunee said.

Alison Green, CEO of Pantera Press, said: “At Pantera Press, we see the joy of reading as key to an enjoyable and fruitful life. Supporting Let’s Read means we can directly help The Smith Family do more to break the cycle of disadvantage for an even greater number of Australian kids and their families, and help develop a new generation of story-lovers. We spent two years searching for a research-based program that addressed literacy from birth, and was already proven. There are excellent catch-up programs for children in their later years, but we wanted to help disadvantaged kids kick-start their lives with the same tools we had, to help open up to them the great opportunities that Australia offers.”