Taking story time on the road

Ms. Kim reads to the kids at Kindercare.

Reading matters, especially for kids.

By the age of 2, children who are read to regularly display greater language comprehension, larger vocabularies, and higher cognitive skills than their peers.

But in the United States, fewer than half the kids five and younger are read to every day by their parents or other family members.

Furthermore, 37 percent of children arrive at kindergarten without the skills necessary for lifetime learning.

We do everything we can to encourage reading in the community. We hold story times, give away books, and (lest we should forget to mention it) have thousands upon thousands of books that you can borrow for free.

But we realize that not every parent can or will bring their kid to the library, so we try to bring the library to them.

We routinely visit day cares and preschools in the community, so we can help share the joy of reading there, as well.

If you manage a day care or preschool in the Mentor community and you'd like the library to visit, email our children's department manager Kim Sidorick at kim.sidorick(at)mentorpl.org.

But we can only do so much. Read to your child. Encourage them when they read on their own. Literacy is a gift you can give that will benefit them their entire life.