Since 1987, the New York State PTA has been the official sponsor and administrator for the Parents As Reading Partners (PARP) Program. The primary objective of the program is to encourage reading at home. PARP encourages parents to read with their children for at least 15 minutes a day.

PARP is a reading program where parents and teachers work in a joint volunteer effort to encourage children to become better readers. The program can be run at little or not cost. (In many cases, volunteer donations from local businesses provide the awards and prizes for the student participants.) PARP programs have helped to build and strengthen the partnership between the home and school. Together, this effort will make our children more successful and education more fruitful.

Why Your Child Should Read for 20 minutes Every Day

Student A reads 20 minutes five nights of every week;
Student B reads only 4 minutes a night or not at all!

Step 1: Multiply minutes a night x 5 times each week.
Student A reads 20 min. x 5 times a week = 100 minutes/week
Student B reads 4 minutes x 5 times a week = 20 minutes

Step 2: Multiply minutes a week x 4 weeks each month.
Student A reads 400 minutes a month.
Student B reads 80 minutes a month.

Step 3 : Multiply minutes a month x 9 months/school year
Student A reads 3600 min. in a school year.
Student B reads 720 min. in a school year.

Student A practices reading the equivalent of ten whole school days a year.
Student B gets the equivalent of only two school days of reading practice.

By the end of 6th grade if Student A and Student B maintain these same reading habits, Student A will have read the equivalent of 60 whole school days Student B will have read the equivalent of only 12 school days. One would expect the gap of information retained will have widened considerably and so, undoubtedly, will school performance. How do you think Student B will feel about him/herself as a student?

Which student would you expect to read better?
Which student would you expect to know more?
Which student would you expect to write better?
Which student would you expect to have a better vocabulary?
Which student would you expect to be more successful in school and in life?

*If daily reading begins in infancy, by the time the child is five years old, he or she has been fed roughly 900 hours of brain food!

*Reduce that experience to just 30 minutes a week, and the child's hungry mind lose 770 hours of nursery rhymes, fairytales, and stories.

*A kindergarten student who has not been read aloud to could enter school with less than 60 hours of literacy nutrition. No teacher, no matter how talented, can make up for those lost hours of mental nourishment.

*Therefore 30 minutes daily = 900 hours
30 minutes weekly = 130 hours
Less than 30 minutes weekly = 60 hours

Guess you now understand why reading daily is so very important. Why not have family night reading? It is great to just shut off the television for 20-30 minutes and read and share.