About the Partnership:
In 2002, Governor Bredesen pledged to partner with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Foundation to help make her effective pre-K literacy program available to all Tennessee children regardless of family income. This partnership is now a reality.
The program is currently up and running in numerous Tennessee counties and provides a new, age- appropriate, hardcover book each month to children from birth to age five at no cost to the family.
A blue ribbon committee of childhood education experts selects the books for the Imagination Library, which includes such well-loved classics as The Little Engine That Could, Spot Goes to the Farm, Snowy Day, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!
The committee also determines an age-appropriate timeline for book themes, including: visual and playful stimulation in year one; repetition and body awareness in year two; love, colors and letters in year three; diversity of others and poetry in year four; and finally, riddles, science and appreciation in year five.
Seven bilingual books are offered this year featuring Spanish and English text on the same page. This is an excellent way to expose Tennessee families to both languages.
For many Tennessee families, books are a luxury and we have an opportunity to provide them with an entire library in the most important years of their child’s development.
In many communities, hospital nurses are giving children their first book the very day they are born, and local pediatricians and family physicians are giving the parents of their preschool patients a “prescription to read.”
To assist with county-wide Imagination Library efforts, Governor Bredesen recently obtained the General Assembly’s approval of a $2 million challenge grant to pay 50% of the cost of providing the books to the state’s 375,000 children under age five each month.
The total cost of the program is only $27 per child, per year, which includes 12 hardcover, age-appropriate books, postage, shipping and handling, and reflects absolutely no administrative overhead costs. With the match grant program in place, county-wide Imagination Library programs will pay just $13.50 per child, per year!
In May 2004, Governor Bredesen created the Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation to serve as a catalyst and tangible resource to local leaders seeking to establish their own county-wide Imagination Library initiatives. The Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation staff is charged with raising state-wide funds, administering the Imagination Library state-wide rollout, and providing support, training and resources to county efforts.
The Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation is dedicated to providing the best available literacy resources and opportunities to Tennessee’s children. This program believes that when parents or caregivers read to children, families are strengthened, doors are opened and possibilities are endless. The result: generations of happier, healthier and more productive Tennessee families.
The Program Goal:
While many communities across the nation are taking advantage of this program, Tennessee is the first state to implement the Imagination Library on a state-wide basis.
The Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation works to foster a love of reading in the 375,000 Tennessee children under the age of five. The goal is to see these children reading at grade level by the end of the third grade, as research indicates that children who cannot reach this target reading level have continuing difficulties in school and are more likely to drop out of high school.
The state is striving to partner with all 95 Tennessee counties by fall of 2005 and to make Tennessee a national example of how a successful state-county-private sector partnership is managed.