CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dolly Parton’s initiative to enhance literacy and generate a love of reading in young children is making an impact here in the Mountain State.
The West Virginia Department of Education was host to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, also known as “Dolly Day” at the Kanawha County Public Library in Charleston Friday.
State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt paid a visit to the event to read to children and participate in hands-on activities with them. The department of education also shared resources that help families build literacy skills in their children.
Blatt said with such an emphasis on literacy-building in West Virginia schools already, Dolly Day is yet another way they can reinforce its importance.
“Reading is not only my passion but it has been our focus for the past couple of years at the Department of Education with our Ready Read Write initiative, because we know that if students are successful readers by the end of third grade then they’re going to have success in school and in their future lives,” said Blatt.
Following the famed country singers visit to West Virginia in 2022, Governor Jim Justice officially declared August 9 as “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Day” across the state. It’s a day celebrating statewide access to Dolly’s library for children five and younger.
As part of the day, volunteers from the communities read aloud to the young kids at libraries around the state. Through the program, kids also receive books in the mail on a monthly basis.
Blatt said with its aim at promoting early childhood literacy, it has seen significant success over the years.
“Kids love to get mail, and so when they’re able to go to the mailbox and they have mail addressed to them and then it’s a book, they love it,” she said. “At last year’s event you could tell the students that were a part of Imagination Library, they knew the stories before we read them to them.”
After starting the program in West Virginia in 2018, a total of 624,000 books have been delivered to 52,000 kids across the state annually.
In addition, approximately 245 million books have been delivered to over 3 million kids nationwide through the program since its inception in 1995.
Blatt said it’s a highly important initiative to start reading to children at such a young age.
“We know the sooner the students are read to the more success they’re going to have when they make it to school,” said Blatt. “So, having these books in the home and having adults there to read to them and encourage them to start sounding out letters and identifying what’s happening in a book and following through with a story, then once they start kindergarten, they’ve had that experience.”
The Dolly Parton Imagination Library receives support from the West Virginia Legislature and a partnership between the WVDE and the June Harless Center at Marshall University.