University Of Southern Maine

The University of Maine’s Raymond H. Fogler Library and College of Education and Human Development, with the Old Town Elementary School and Old Town Public Library, will use this grant to support the planning of three informational text kit sets (20 – 30 kits per set) that will become long-term support for early literacy in Maine. This planning grant will evaluate and develop how libraries can work together to support literacy from birth to age eight and address the challenges of school readiness and summer reading loss. Once created, the kits will act as a model for other libraries to address early literacy challenges. The project will support training on the kits, early literacy knowledge, promoting their use with parents, and the criteria for crafting new kits in the future.