Books for Babies

Books for Babies

Rosanne Fortier News Correspondent

The love of literacy leads to a lifelong love of learning. Community Association for Lasting Success (CALS) made this happen when they presented the programs- Books for Babies and Baby Talk at Homestead Senior Citizen’s Lodge. These are intergenerational programs that involve and engage seniors and children.

The first session was on October 9 and it started with a Welcome Song led by Erika Trufyn and continued with more songs.

Trufyn mentioned literacy begins at birth and they want to start early to foster a love of books. We read to babies and children because books expose children to the things in the world and it increases language and literacy skills for little ones.

Family Literacy Facilitator, Jennifer Dixon went on and spoke about research that discovered children who have this type of exposure know more words by the age of two than children who have not been read to. It takes two years to acquire language but it is crucial we talk to our babies from birth because if they heard language for two years, they began to learn it on their own. It takes five years to acquire book language. Therefore this early exposure to books from birth onward is crucial so that children will have the foundation when they enter kindergarten.

The children learned more songs and, at the end of the event, each child received a free brand-new book they could take home.

It was mentioned that a community guest speaker is usually invited to speak at the Baby Talk program.

Seniors commented later that they really enjoyed seeing the babies.