Nemours Reading BrightStart!

Thanks to a lovely blogging friend, I was referred to a program offered by Nemours (www.nemours.org) that they are launching called Reading BrightStart!  I had an opportunity to attend a webinar for bloggers introducing the program and brand new website and Nemours provided me with a Reading Readiness swag bag full of goodies for me to test out with Oliver, including several new books.
The Reading BrightStart! initiative is a program designed to help build great reading skills from birth up to age 8.  This new website launched by Nemours is fantastic and has many tools to help parents with activities, book suggestions, preschool screening and development by age.  There is also a section of articles for parents that cover a wide range of topics pertaining to reading development as well.
Nemours says they launched this program to help parents help their children.  In the promotional material I received, they are quoted as saying "parents are crucial in providing the building blocks for early childhood literacy." I could not agree more - both Nate and I were read to as children from a very young age by our parents and we both had above average speaking skills and reading levels by the time we began kindergarten.  
The Reading BrightStart website is extremely easy to navigate and I love that they break things down by age group.  I can go to the site and select a tab for 6-11 months, which is the age group that Oliver currently fits into, and it gives me a list of pre-reading milestones he should be achieving at this age and suggestions on ways to help these milestones along at home - as well as warning signs to be aware of if it were to appear he was not hitting these marks.  Thankfully he is doing well so far and is right on track for his age.  I look forward to using this site more and more as he grows as I feel it's an outstanding resource for reading readiness and development!
We are firm believers in reading in our home.  We have been reading to Oliver since he was born and while a big reason we do it each night and at naptime is to help him settle down for sleep, we also know that it is helping his brain develop and learn as he grows, even if it's just a simple Sandra Boynton book that we're reading to him.  And he loves it.  It makes my heart feel so happy that he does!  

If you are a parent of a child up to age 8, I highly recommend checking out the Reading BrightStart website (www.readingbrightstart.org) and I want to thank Nemours again for the opportunity to learn about this wonderful resource and for the awesome reading readiness swag bag - Ollie's new favorite book is Green Hat, Blue Hat by Sandra Boynton that we received thanks to the swag bag!