HUNTINGTON BEACH : Library to Launch Literacy Program

The Central Library plans to launch a new program to teach parents how to read to their children.

The new program should begin in late January.

A state grant will fund the salary of a half-time project coordinator and storyteller who will work with parents and their children. It will also be used to purchase children’s books to give to participants, local officials said.

A special target group of the program will be families in the disadvantaged Oak View Elementary School area, officials said.

In a recent report, Huntington Beach literacy coordinator Linda Light said that research in education and a variety of fields “has repeatedly borne out the common-sense notion that literacy, and illiteracy, begins in the home, and at a very early age.”

The special adult Library Literacy Program will focus on interaction between children and low-level-reading parents. It seeks to forge a link among the library, reading and families, she said.

About 140 adults are now enrolled in the existing reading program, 25 of whom have children age 5 and under, officials said. The new program will target these learners and their families and recruit other families with young children, officials said.

City Council members approved a plan to use city funds to begin the program. The federal grant funds are expected to arrive in February, and the reading program will continue though June 30, 1993.