“Happy Readers, Healthy Kids” @readbright

Disclosure:  I received a product package in exchange for sharing this information and my opinion.

Recently I attended a webinar focusing on reading challenges kids today face.  The webinar was entitled “Happy Readers, Healthy Kids.”  I personally could relate as I have two readers at home who are struggling.  My boys receive extra help for reading and fortunately their schools have great programs for reading help.  More than 30% of children enter kindergarten without the language and early literacy foundation needed to be successful.  If kids fail to catch up by third grade they will remain behind for the rest of their schooling.  As a mom this scares me.  My oldest is already in 2nd grade and he is still far behind.  I worry too about my 3 year old and I am trying my hardest to instill a love of books and reading.

There are so many resources out there for reading that it can be overwhelming and confusing on what is actually age appropriate.  Well Nemours Children’s Health System has just launched Reading BrightStart!, a national effort aimed at improving reading readiness in children, from birth to 5-years-old. It is designed to offer parents and caregivers evidence-based tools to help their children develop the language skills they need to read.  In case you are curious about who exactly Nemours is, they are widely known around the world for their pediatric medical expertise and one of the country’s leading children’s health systems.  Through research, prevention, education, philanthropy, clinical care and advocacy they are trying to give kids the very best chance to grow up healthy.  With Reading something that is the basis for so much in life, I love that they have created a website to focus on literary skills.

The Reading BrightStart! website is full of resources for parents and its organized by age, activities, book recommendations and more.  There are articles written by experts in brain science, early learning and reading all designed to help parents help their children with reading.  As a mom I often feel helpless when it comes to helping me child read, I never had a problem with reading and its hard for me to understand how my kids could not love to read like I do.  I have read many of the articles and feel they definitely have value to them and point out stuff that may seem obvious but I overlooked it.

For parents of preschoolers (ages 3-5) they even have a Preschool Reading Screener which has parents answering questions and gives you the results and an Action Plan. I took the screener based on my 3 year old and found out what are some of her weaknesses are and how I can help.  For example to help her with Phonological Awareness one suggestion is to clap the syllables in words to help her understand different syllables in words.  The At-Home Activities are a great resource of how to make everyday activities into a learning game and what your kids can gain from it.

Stay Connected with ReadingBrightStart!:

 ReadingBrightStart! FACEBOOK | ReadingBrightStart! TWITTER

Visit to learn more about Nemours Children’s Health System and ReadingBrightStart.org.