Kentucky Humanities, in cooperation with the Hager Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, will bring an award-winning family literacy program to Tamarack Elementary School March 12.
Prime Time Family Reading Time will meet at 5 p.m. on Thursdays from March 12 to April 23 (no meeting on April 2), at Tamarack Elementary School, 1733 Tamarack Road in Owensboro. The program is free and includes meals, door prizes, and educational childcare for younger siblings.
Prime Time Family Reading Time helps families bond around the act of reading and talking about books. In each of six weekly sessions, a discussion leader and storyteller lead programs that demonstrate effective reading techniques. The books introduced to children ages 6 to 10 and their parents explore timeless issues of humanity – fairness, greed, courage, individuality, trickery and determination – while helping them understand the dynamics of making life choices. The program is free and includes meals, door prizes, and educational childcare for younger siblings.
The storyteller is Connie Gough, and Sarah Eastlund is the Prime Time scholar.
Kentucky Humanities Executive Director Bill Goodman believes Prime Time is among the most important programs Kentucky Humanities brings to the Commonwealth.
“We want to do anything we can to promote literacy and share the love of reading with young people throughout Kentucky,” Goodman said. “Prime Time Family Reading Time brings families together through books and gets them talking to each other in ways they never have before. Bringing Prime Time to libraries and schools throughout Kentucky is a joy and a privilege.”
Prime Time Family Reading Time has won awards from the Public Library Association and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities created the program in 1995. Its studies showed that children who went through Prime Time increased their reading time by 80 percent and doubled their trips to the library. The program also benefited their parents, who improved their parenting skills and, in 29 percent of the cases studied, their employment status.
Kentucky Humanities is a non-profit Kentucky corporation affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities. For information about Kentucky Humanities’ programs and services, visit kyhumanities.org.
