PARENTS AS READING PARTNERS (PARP)
Parents As Reading Partners is a collaborative effort among parents, staff, and community to build a reading partnership between the home and the school.
PARP programs encourage parents to read with their children for at least fifteen minutes per day.
In 1987 the New York State PTA assumed the helm of the Parents As Reading Partners (PARP) program begun by the late State Senator James Donovan, Chairman of the State Senate Education Committee. PARP is a program designed to foster the love of reading in children by asking parents to set aside fifteen minutes daily to read with their children.
PARP Program logoLearning to read is the single most important activity in a child’s education. Studies show that children who read at home are better prepared to succeed in formal education. The Parents As Reading Partners program is aimed at involving parents in the essential task of helping their children become lifelong readers.
The primary objective of the program is to encourage reading at home. Children turn to their parents as role models and are more likely to follow the example of a reading parent. Reading at home further provides a supplement to the excellent reading programs currently used in our nation’s schools. PARP asks parents to encourage their children to read, impressing upon them the fact that reading can be fun as well as informative. In addition, the daily communication shared through PARP will serve to strengthen the family.
PARP is a reading program where parents and teachers work in a joint effort to encourage children to become better readers. The program can be run at little or no cost. In many cases volunteers from local businesses will donate funds for printing materials and awards/prizes for the children. The voluntary approach and the subsequent success that the PARP program has achieved are proof that it is truly a worthwhile project.
PARP is a successful volunteer effort that fortifies our children’s reading habits. It is important because it has helped to cement the necessary bond between the home and the school to foster the education process. Together, this effort will make our children more successful and their education more fruitful.
WESTERN REGION PTA®
Congratulations to Alexander Hamilton Elementary School for winning the New York State PARP award. Their successful PARP program titled "Get Ready, Get Set, Read" was run for four (4) weeks last March with about 445 students participating in the reading program. The PARP program featured many exciting activities throughout the month including two main family nights. The family nights were a "hit" with sports Bingo and reading pajama night for the primary grades. The materials submitted in the application will now be used by NYS PARP program as a tool for other schools and libraries to run a PARP program. Congratulations Alexander Hamilton on a great PARP reading program!
New this year is the PARP CD. This CD was released at the Summer Leadership Conference in Utica - hot off the presses. A free copy of the CD will be in the August mailing sent to the unit/council Presidents. This CD will contain helpful hints on how to run a PARP program and it is filled with ideas from past PARP award winning programs. The CD is WORD documents (both PC & MAC) and the documents can be easily changed so you can use them for your school or library! The forms are already done so it saves you time! Presidents please pass this CD along to your PARP chair(s). If anyone has any questions or needs some help, please contact me at tracyconway@roadunner.com. If you feel your school or library would benefit from starting a PARP program but are unsure where to start just let me know and we can help!