At The Speech And Language Center, we love finding simple ways for families to support speech, language, and early literacy development at home. And it doesn’t get much simpler than having a new book show up in your mailbox every month!
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a free book-gifting program for children from birth to age five. Children who are enrolled receive a high-quality, age-appropriate book mailed directly to their home each month, at absolutely no cost to their family.
What Is Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library?
Dolly Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 in her home county in East Tennessee, inspired in part by her father, who never had the opportunity to learn to read and write. What began as a local program has grown into an international effort that now sends millions of books to children every month.
The goal is simple: help children develop a love of books and reading by making books accessible to families.
Children can participate from birth until age five in communities where the program is available. There is no income requirement, and families do not pay for the books or shipping.
Why We Love This Program as Speech-Language Pathologists
Reading together is about so much more than learning to read.
Books create natural opportunities for children to hear new words, learn new concepts, practice listening, answer and ask questions, make predictions, retell events, and engage in back-and-forth interactions with the people they love.
And you don’t have to read every word on every page to make book time beneficial.
With younger children, try pointing to pictures and naming what you see. Make animal and environmental sounds. Pause and give your child a chance to fill in a familiar word. Talk about what the characters are doing. Ask your child what they think might happen next. And if your child wants to read the same book for what feels like the 100th time? That’s okay too! Repetition gives children more opportunities to hear and learn the same words and language patterns.
The Imagination Library specifically selects books based on children’s ages and developmental stages. Books for the youngest children emphasize things like colorful pictures, rhyme, rhythm, simple language and playful sounds. As children grow, selections begin incorporating concepts such as repetition, routines, colors, letters, numbers, storytelling, problem solving and eventually school readiness.
How Do I Sign My Child Up?
Availability is based on where you live because the Imagination Library works with local community partners to fund and administer the program. Families can enter their address on the Imagination Library website to see whether enrollment is currently available in their area.
Children who are eligible can begin receiving books as babies and continue until they turn five. That means a child enrolled from birth could build quite the home library before kindergarten even begins!
Check availability and sign up for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
A New Book and New Opportunities for Language
One of our favorite things about this program is that it doesn’t give families another complicated activity to add to their day. It simply puts books into children’s hands.
Read together at bedtime. Keep a book in the car. Let your child turn the pages. Talk about the pictures instead of reading the words. Read the same favorite book over and over again.
Every book is another opportunity to talk, listen, connect, and build language.
And when that book arrives in the mailbox with your child’s name on it? Even better.
