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It is not just the job of teachers and parents to encourage children to read. It's everyone's job.

It is the goal of the South Carolina Reading Project™ to turn everyone into a literacy advocate.

The South Carolina Reading Project™ is a new literacy advocacy initiative created for the purpose of involving parents early in their children’s literacy and educational development.

"Parental involvement is directly linked to student engagement in learning for all students."

-South Carolina State Reading Plan

Introducing children to reading at an early age has been shown to contribute to their academic successes, their critical thinking abilities and their creativity and inquisitiveness. Years of research show a child’s home environment during the first five years of life, when children develop more rapidly than any other time, will significantly impact the development of his or her early language and reading skills. Early exposure to books, and being exposed to more words and more language through conversation, is proven to help increase a child’s brain development and better prepares them to learn and read.

FIRST, this website provides parents with a wealth of free video resources to help their preschoolers develop early foundational literacy skills, such as learning their ABC's, phonics, and developing a vocabulary. Watching these highly entertaining educational videos daily from an early age using a smartphone, tablet, or computer would likely give your child a major boost in becoming an early reader, and would prepare them well for future success in school. In addition to the links above, these links can also be found in the drop-down menu under the pre-K tab near the top of each page.

SECONDLY, it is a goal of the South Carolina Reading Project™ to encourage parents to understand the importance of reading at home, especially during the summer. Parents can best strengthen their children’s reading habits and help them avoid “summer reading loss” by reading aloud with them, as well as encouraging them to read for fun. Reading for fun fosters an intrinsic love of reading, which means children are reading because they want to, not because they have to!

THIRDLY, the South Carolina Reading Project™ website serves as a time-saving quick reference guide for busy parents and teachers to find quality reading material for their young readers that matches their reading level. There is also a reference list of books for parents that will provide the basic knowledge needed to support your child’s foundational literacy and language development to set them up to excel in school.

To begin becoming your child’s reading hero, please click the links below:

LASTLY, this website provides links to the most important information parents need to know about South Carolina’s Read to Succeed law and SC READY. There is a link provided to download the 2021 SC READY Brochure, which will answer parents' questions about this statewide assessment and when testing dates are for the school year. All South Carolina Department of Education links can be found in the right-hand column of the homepage or bottom of page on a mobile phone.

The books listed on this website from the Children's Choices Reading List are selected annually by 12,500 children from across the United States in cooperation with the Children's Book Council and the International Literacy Association. It is designed for use not only by educators, librarians and media specialists, administrators, and booksellers but also by parents and families, caregivers, and anyone who wishes to encourage young people to read for pleasure. The books on the Teacher’s Choices Reading List are chosen annually by the International Literacy Association’s Teachers’ Choices project as being exceptional for both curriculum use and encouraging young people to read.

These books represent both the most popular and critically-acclaimed books published each year for children and teens and are organized by grade level for easy reference. (see links below)