Visiting the family
Three years after initiating project Book Start, the employees now know the areas around Hasle/Bispehaven and Gellerup Parken. Here, we bring parents free book packs for children aged 6 months and again when they are one year old. If it is a new family, we tell them about the idea of Book Start which is to make parents read aloud and tell stories to the children in the family either in Danish or in their native language. We tell them how important it is to support the child’s language development by talking and singing to and showing pictures to the child.
The library invites and visits the nursery
Parents with children of 1½ years of age were invited to the library or to some other relevant gathering place in order to pick up a third book pack. The fourth book pack, which the child receives when it has turned three years of age, is delivered to child care centres where we have also read aloud.
Cooperation partners
All of the project workers have participated in a seminar in which we discussed, among other things, Frederikke Winther’s report on Book Start. She is an employee at the Centre for Children’s Literature. In Aarhus, we have cooperated with the Department of Children and Young People which also hands out materials that help language development in Bispehaven.
Parents happy with books and visits
The project has been very well received among the toddler families in the selected, marginalised areas and the employees involved are happy to deliver the book packs.
Luckily, new rate adjustment pool resources have been awarded project Book Start for another four years so we can continue our work. The new project period begins in 2013.