Last month, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences awarded 14 grants totaling more than a quarter million dollars at the annual Chancellor's Circle Grant Awards ceremony. One of those grants will fund the Arkansas Imagination Library. And if that sounds familiar—Imagination Library—you can thank Dolly Parton for that. Thirty years ago, she started the Imagination Library project. It's a program that sends a free new book in the mail every month to kids from birth to age 5, regardless of their income. And thanks to a $35,000 grant, every kid born at UAMS in Little Rock will be signed up for the program.
Nicole Malott is a registered nurse in labor and delivery with UAMS. She says this program is something that's meant a lot to her own grandkids.
“They are so excited to run with me to the mailbox and pick up their book. And then we sit down and we have a reading session. And it just kind of brings me back when I was younger with my mom. She inspired me to read. And it's such a great thing for Arkansas children to be inspired by parents, loved ones, whoever—the passion for reading. I think that's really going to help our literacy rates in Arkansas as well.”
A study published by the National Institutes of Health shows that early exposure to reading and being read to have major benefits to a child's development. Children who are read to at least three times a week are more likely to recognize letters, count to 20 and have a more expansive vocabulary. But this is not just beneficial to the kids. The study also shows that giving books early and coaching parents can mean that parents are two and a half times more likely to read with their infants and toddlers.
Malott says the grant funding will go to pay into the international program that is the Imagination Library.
“There is obviously a cost. It's definitely discounted through the Dolly Parton per county. They have to pay for a couple dollars per book and then the shipping as well. And it's a big undertaking for each county as well, because we don't think about—we are responsible when we register these kiddos—that we are going to be funding for five years.”
The program had a soft launch in August, and Malott says this new funding allows them to enroll not just kids born at UAMS. Eligible siblings will also be enrolled too.
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