Parents as Teachers is a voluntary early childhood development program offering research-based curricula that help families raise children to be healthy, safe, learning and ready for school.
This October, Shannon and I had the pleasure of attending the 2023 Parents as Teachers International Conference. This marked our first in-person return to the conference since the pandemic, and we were filled with excitement to reconnect with our incredible customers and forge new connections with other amazing programs.
For those who may not be familiar with the Parents as Teachers initiative, their mission is to foster the optimal early development, learning, and health of children by actively supporting and engaging their parents and caregivers. The early years of a child's life are crucial for their overall growth and serve as the building blocks for their success in both school and life. Parents As Teachers firmly believes that parents and caregivers play a pivotal role as their children's primary and most influential educators. By providing them with essential resources, educational materials, home visits, access to resource networks, and screenings, they empower parents and caregivers to be the very best first teachers for their children.
At the Welcome Reception on Monday night, we were fortunate to have the opportunity to connect with numerous attendees. Witnessing the excitement in people's eyes as they saw our display of titles like Happy Baby: Tummy Time, I Already Love You, Music and Me, and When I Feel Loved was truly inspiring. We greatly appreciated hearing your thoughts and ideas about the books we offer, and we are eagerly looking forward to continually meeting the needs of Parents As Teachers Affiliates and other literacy programs nationwide!
During our last day at the conference, I took the amazing opportunity to attend the Together for Diverse Books: Increasing Access Workshop, which was led by a panel of children's literacy advocates, program leaders, parents, and diverse authors. In this workshop we discussed the importance of diversity in promoting literacy. A statistic that really stuck out to me was that in a study conducted by First Book Research & Insights, incorporating a range of diverse titles into classroom libraries, students were found to spend an average of up to 4 additional hours reading per week compared to classrooms with limited diversity. This increase in reading time also led to reading scores that were up to 3 percentage points higher than the national average. Additionally, classrooms that introduced bilingual and LGBTQ+ titles reported the most significant improvements.
It was an honor to attend this conference and participate in as much as we could. We truly enjoyed our time and look forward to next year!
Hey there, I’m Brittany Winans
Brittany started in Spring 2022 and works on maintaining all our marketing, branding, publishing, and social media efforts with our Marketing Manager. If you follow us on social media, chances are you have already seen some of Brittany’s work!
