Womb Worries and Reading Readiness

If you’ve walked past a news stand recently, your eye may have landed on last week’s issue of Time magazine featuring the silhouette of a pregnant woman and an article called How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life. Scientists are doing fascinating studies in the field of fetal origins, an area of science devoted to researching how our time in the womb affects things from personality traits to our risk for heart disease.

Pregnant Woman
Heide Benser / Corbis

This new research, coupled with decades of studies done on infant and toddler brain development, may end up making you worry more about what you aren’t doing as a parent than giving you ideas about what you should be doing.

Yeah, we don’t think that is very helpful either. All of our library storytellers are trainers certified to present a workshop called Every Child Ready to Read. There are three sessions, each geared toward the parents or caregivers of children ages 0-2, 2-3, and 4-5. In these sessions we do discuss interesting brain research and powerful studies that show just how important reading to and talking with your child really are. But, the workshops don’t stop there. We show you how to incorporate early literacy skills in your daily life in a fun way using picture books, songs and rhymes.

So, don’t let these news articles send you into paroxysms of guilt about how you have probably already irrevocably messed up your children. Join us at the library this October for  fun, realistic tips about things you can do right now to set your child up for success!

For more information, or to register for one of our workshops, go to: http://www.wclibrary.info/storytime/ecrtr.asp