Annual Family Literacy Week, 2007

In efforts to promote literacy in the home, Seventh Avenue Head Start held its Annual Family Literacy week from April 24th to May 4th, 2007. The days were filled with various literacy activities. These activities included: parents reading with their children and to the class, special performances of Cat in the Hat and Where is Curious George by certified teacher and dramatist, Ann Coppola, and book making activities. In addition, we were honored with the presence of guest readers who included community partners, elected officials and children's author Alan Katz. Parents turned out in large numbers to support this initiative.

The weeks' event culminated with family book-making where the children and their families created their personalized ABC books. Also, to reinforce the importance of literacy and to encourage parents to make daily reading a part of family activities children received several books each to start their home library.

We are grateful to our community partners who through their generous donations in the form of cash, books and supplies helped in sponsoring this important initiative. We would like to also acknowledge our teachers who worked hard to make this event successful. Our special thank you goes to our community leaders Senator Bill Perkins, and Al Tailor who represented our long time supporter, Assemblyman Denny Farrell, Jr., for personally gracing our event.

Annual Family Literacy Week 2008

Our 2nd Annual Family Literacy Event was held during the weeks of April 14th at our Bronx site and April 28th at our Manhattan site. In our continued commitment to promote literacy in the home, parents were invited to participate each day in the school’s activities. Our days were organized around specific themes and, recognizing the importance of meal time conversations and its role in emergent literacy, we also coordinated our menus and encouraged parents to join us at meal times. Similar to last year, we had a special performance by Ann Coppola, who performed the Runaway Tortilla. The week culminated with the children and their parents creating their ABC book and children receiving their very own Bag of books to add to their home library.

This year, through our collaboration with Books for Kids Foundation, our Manhattan site received a new and improved Parent Lending Library which included new books, bean chairs and book shelves. We are especially thankful to Nell O’Donnell, Program Coordinator of Books for Kids Foundation and her Goldman Sachs team who worked long hours on organizing the library for our families.

Lastly, our event was made successful thanks to the participation and contributions from our community partners who took time out of their busy schedules to read to our children. We are especially thankful to the Pearson Foundation for their contribution of the ABC books, materials, volunteer Readers and additional books for the children’s library and Ms. Gwendolyn Govan for her generous gift of books. We would also like to thank our staff who worked hard in preparing for and supporting this important initiative.

We look forward to a successful 3rd year.