Paint the Town REaD launches Books for Bedtime Initiative at Westall
Paint the Town REaD (PTTR) is an early literacy movement that encourages reading with children from birth, so that children begin school ready to learn. PTTR has been a partner and supporter of Our Place for many years, with the relationship commencing at our lighthouse site Doveton College almost eight years ago, where Paint Doveton REaD was launched. Since then, as other Our Place sites have emerged, some have also partnered with PTTR to promote the importance of early literacy in their local communities.
What is Books for Bedtime?
In response to a general decrease in the number of books being read to children before bedtime, PTTR received funding from the Readings Foundation for the Books for Bedtime initiative. This funding supports 30 early years service providers in Victoria to participate and aims to support parents and carers through early childhood service providers (long daycare, kindergarten services, preschools, family daycare) and playgroups to read with their children at bedtime. The project is designed to support families to re-instigate a routine with books, not only for the benefits books have in developing language and early literacy foundation skills, but also as a great co-regulating activity for parents and children that helps to bring down stress levels, which can then help children get ready for sleep.
Supporting the launch
PTTR reached out to Our Place Westall to help support the launch of this initiative. Acting as the role of the glue, Our Place Westall assisted by offering and organising to host the launch at the Westall Community Hub, with Kingston City Council generously providing the venue and extended expressions of interest to early years providers to attend and learn more about this opportunity. Some of the providers that attended included Our Place Westall partners Kingston City Council, Kingston Libraries and Westall Kindergarten. Each provider that participated received an overview of the initiative and a kit that included a books for bedtime manual, free books donated by 123Read2Me and bookmarks to take back to their service. This kit is designed to assist early years services in implementing this initiative with parents and carers. Our Place has also received Books for Bedtime kits for the early years providers at our Doveton and Corio sites.
Aligning with the Our Place Approach
Our Place Westall were pleased to be able to play a facilitating role in supporting local early years providers to discover and explore this initiative. This initiative also aligns with the Our Place Element of High Quality Early Learning health and development, in particular supporting positive home learning environments. Positive home learning environments are important within the Our Place approach as the evidence tells us that the home learning environment is the most important factor in developing early speech, language, communication and social and emotional skills, which are all essential skills for learning.
For more information about the Our Place Approach, including our five evidence based elements Click Here
To learn more about PTTR or to get involved with their initiatives, please visit their website at: https://www.paintthetownread.info/
