Reading often and early in a child’s life is the best way to build critical reading skills, but owning a collection of age-appropriate books can be difficult for low-income families. That’s why our Head Start to Success free preschool program and Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education (EI/ECSE) have partnered with local nonprofit The Clackamas Bookshelf to get books into our students’ homes.
Katy Preston, former teacher, mother and founder of The Clackamas Bookshelf, discovered a local need for more access to books at home in her work as a teacher and as a volunteer at her children’s school. She saw firsthand that many of the children in low-income households did not have any books of their own, and she began collecting books to distribute to children in need.
Quickly the program became so popular that “it took over my whole life and filled up my whole garage,” Katy says. “I thought, well, I can’t teach everybody how to read, but I could fill that one little hole so at least they have books to practice with at home.” The Clackamas Bookshelf has grown in leaps and bounds, and today its operations are based out of Kraxberger Middle School in Gladstone and the program serves all 10 school districts in Clackamas County.
Katy loves to partner with our Head Start to Success program. “When we serve Head Start to Success, I feel like it’s just the right people at the right time,” Katy explains.
The Clackamas Bookshelf gives all 222 Head Start to Success students a bag of 10 age-appropriate fiction and nonfiction books, including at least two new books and the rest gently used books cleaned and restored by The Clackamas Bookshelf volunteers. The books are given to the children at their classroom and are theirs to take home and keep.
“They’re so so excited to share them with their families — it feels like a present,” says Amy Altenberger, our Head Start to Success disabilities and mental health specialist who coordinates the book distributions for the Head Start program. “Our families have certainly appreciated it. I’ve heard lots of parents say, ‘Oh, I love the books that came in our bag! They are so good and we read the books every night.’”
“Children experiencing poverty have less access to print and less access to words and language, so having books that are developmentally appropriate is hugely beneficial to their education, their growth, their development,” adds Amy.
The Clackamas Bookshelf also donates books to our EI/ECSE programs. Beth Kersens, EI/ECSE specialist, knows how important access to a variety of books is to building reading skills, particularly with children with special learning needs. “Learning a child’s interests and offering them a book that matches those interests is more motivating to a child,” Beth explains. “A child that loves dinosaurs considers reading a book about dinosaurs fun, rather than work. The wide variety of quality, age-appropriate books we get from The Clackamas Bookshelf lets us pair a child with the right books to support early literacy skills, like how to orient a book the right way, turning pages using their developing fine motor skills, and pointing to pictures that interest them. ”
Former Head Start to Success Bilingual Specialist Olga Salinas initiated Clackamas ESD and The Clackamas Bookshelf’s collaboration about four years ago, and 3,814 books from The Clackamas Bookshelf have been distributed to students served by Clackamas ESD since.
To learn more about The Clackamas Bookshelf and how to support it by volunteering, donating books and purchasing books at their book store, visit theclackamasbookshelf.org.
