The program offers low-income parents the support, materials, and encouragement they need to successfully start young children on the road to reading. The program distributes packets of three quality paperback children's books and tips on home storybook reading.
Parents also receive a coupon to redeem for a fourth free book at their local library.
Beginning with Books also trains the staffs of dozens of social service, educational, and health agencies to counsel parents when they receive the Gift Book packets. Parents are urged to read to their children daily and are offered suggestions on how to make storytimes an enjoyable learning experience. The staff of Head Start and Even Start programs, health clinics, shelters, adult literacy providers, and teen parenting programs have found that the Gift Book program has enabled them to establish a rapport with families while helping their programs achieve their objectives for parent involvement and education. Parents report that the appealing books and helpful tips result in satisfying home reading sessions that stimulate positive parent-child interactions and children's language development. Moreover, the children whose parents received the gift packet were perceived by their teachers as having higher reading ability than children of parents who did not receive the packet.