Program Resources

(Additional funding and program suggestions were contributed by trained facilitators at Annual Reunions.)

Helpful Links

Discussion Facilitator Directory
Know who your colleagues are! This Directory lists all trained, active Motheread® Arizona discussion facilitators and includes institution, name, city, work phone, e-mail address, and training date. Please submit a Contact Information Update whenever your contact information changes.

Motheread® National Office Web site
Training and curricula descriptions, Frequently Asked Questions, and links to other state Motheread programs.

Minnesota Motheread/Fatheread® Web site
"Tips for Reading With Your Children" in multiple languages. These pages can be printed out and given to your participants.

Washington State Motheread/Fatheread® Web site
Icebreaker Archives (Note that some of these are for titles that are not in the adult curriculum.)

Funding Suggestions

Your sites will need to raise funds for books and other expenses, whether it is from your organizational budgets or from local charities or business. These organizations will probably prefer to provide books rather than administrative costs. Remember to offer them funding acknowledgement stickers in each book.

Local businesses interested in supporting literacy such as bookstores, etc.
Local service organizations such as Jaycees, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary, Soroptimists, etc.
Get budget expenses such as childcare and refreshments included in programs like Head Start, Title I, etc.
Seek press to do high profile article on programs. One site received thousands of dollars in donations!
Correctional facilities: Educational Practices Grants
One correctional facility held pizza sales within the inmate community
301 money
Title I money
Christmas gift trees
Churches and religious organizations
Homebuilders
Libraries and library friend groups
Local businesses
APS
Barnes & Noble or Borders
Dolly Wood Foundation
Farmers Insurance
First Book
Fry’s
PEEF grant
PTO
RIF - Reading Is Fundamental
Rotary Club
Safeway
Starbucks Foundation
Target
Walmart
Wells Fargo

Program Suggestions

We suggest field trips to the local library. Collaborate with the librarians to welcome your adult participants into the library setting and to provide them with library cards. This special introduction will help them transition from Motheread® participants to full-time reading role models for their children.

We also suggest that you hold some sort of graduation ceremony or celebration for your participants at the end of each series. This helps them feel a sense of accomplishment, bond with their co-participants, and stay excited and motivated about reading with their children. You can invite their family members, serve refreshments or have a potluck, and even have the participants do a Storysharing session with all their kids! State Coordinator Ann-Mary Johnson would be happy to come and present certificates, take pictures, or simply get to know the participants.

Remember that trained Motheread® facilitators are also certified to hold Storysharing sessions for groups of children, though this is not an activity that Motheread® Arizona requires.

Recruitment Suggestions

Schools: personal contact and phone calls, family nights, ask kids to talk to parents
Community Centers: community dining rooms, DES programs
Library partners: family literacy sites, crisis shelters
Survey potential participants to find out what they want and need
Skit to illustrate the why and when of parent/child reading
Hold classes in public place, with free and ample parking
Hold classes after summer school sessions in the evening
Free childcare, with help from school groups such as National Junior Honor Society
Offer transportation through carpools or tokens
Flyers (not too wordy)
Flyers with excerpts from book
Flyers with language from non-deficit perspective
Syllabus on colorful paper as sneak preview
Connect to college credit
Invite a high profile guest
Established groups with available childcare are easiest
Word of mouth from other parents is very powerful

Icebreaker Suggestions

Self-portraits
Any question related to theme in book
Draw a picture, no words, of childhood experience with theme
Make predictions about story based on book cover
Share experiences of previous book and use of Storysharing page with children
Bring in picture of family and introduce to class
Correctional facilities: pass around roll of toilet paper (common prison item) and each person may say something about themselves for each square of toilet paper they take.
Bossy Gallito: role-play a bossy person
Leo the Late Bloomer/Quick as a Cricket: "stand up if you………(put positive skill or interest here)"
Margaret and Margarita: use Venn Diagram to write similarities and differences of classmates
Story of Ferdinand: ask about expectations for children and how to model them

Program and Incentives Suggestions

Choose humorous books
Provide monthly calendars
Give "craft kit" at start of series
Take-home projects/props. One correctional facility created "treasure boxes" from inmate shoeboxes. Each inmate participant put in books, recordings, and craft activities and sent to child(ren) at completion of class. The trained facilitator also included a "Dear Child" letter describing the work the participant had done because "he/she loves you and wants to be a good father/mother to you."
Field trip for parents to ride carousel, etc. – "put selves in shoes of child"
Reading-based event at Barnes & Noble or Borders
Hold sessions outdoors in nice weather
Bookends for home libraries: decorate old metal, or make out of cardboard, for families to keep Motheread® books together at home
Motheread® bookshelf with check-out system
Refreshments: snacks donated by community, or parents and facilitators take turns providing
Door prizes
Stickers for kids
Freebies from Sam’s Club
Goldilocks and the Three Bears: make puppets, use with voices of characters

Literacy as a Process - Adult Literacy Development Suggestions

Have parents write their own text for certain pictures
Create worksheets with color graphics, suitable-for-framing, so participants feel more positive about their writing abilities
Tape the readings using check-out tapes so parents can practice pronunciation at home
Teach parents to paraphrase and simplify wordy books for preschoolers
Have parents read to elementary classes
Tell Me a Story, Mama: make journal for parents and kids to write in together

Working with ESL Speakers Suggestions

Bilingual facilitator very helpful, or provide a translator
Bilingual books/readings
English/Spanish classes – to mix or not? If so, pair up parents (English/Spanish)
Facilitators and participants do on-the-spot translating
Translation handouts can help
Poems are hard to translate
Crafts as icebreakers
Cards with pictures and words in English and Spanish
Extra time so moms can practice reading English in a bilingual edition
Parenting books in Spanish for classroom
Parents Anonymous pamphlets in Spanish
No Child Left Behind materials in Spanish
National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education parenting materials in Spanish

Celebrations/Graduations Suggestions

Decorate and frame Certificates of Achievement
Free books from Scholastic Literacy Partners or donated by local businesses, wrapped as gifts or door prizes
Free dinners donated by local restaurants such as Hometown Buffet
Pot lucks