BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Brevard Public Schools is partnering with local hospitals to provide all babies born in the county their first picture books as part of an initiative to increase early childhood learning.
Brevard Public Schools spokesman Russell Bruhn said the project, titled “Thrive by Five,” has been about four years in the making, according to News 6 partners Florida Today.
Parents of babies born in Brevard will be provided with bags containing a copy of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See,” a bib, and a handout on how to maximize early childhood learning with a QR code that can take new parents to the district’s Thrive by Five Website. The website has links to more free resources about childhood development, how babies learn and how to keep young children on track to begin reading.
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“For several years, I’ve been looking for a way to ensure that our youngest learners, even from birth, would have been set on a path to success even before they enter our schools, because we know that if we can get every toddler to being reading ready by kindergarten, their chance, their opportunity, their trajectory for academic success soars to great heights,” BPS Superintendent Mark Mullins said at a Monday press conference for the initiative.
Mullins said at a School Board meeting last Tuesday that the resources will help families take advantage of a critical time for learning in children’s lives and prepare them for school. Between birth and age 5, children develop 85% of their brain, including critical neural pathways related to language and communication
“If you’ve raised a child you know those early years they are moving fast they are learning fast,” Mullins said. “In fact, they develop more than one million neuron connections per second … their brains are wired from the moment of birth to get ready to learn for the rest of their lives and their neurons are just uh firing at accelerated rates.”
As of Monday, the website has gone live and billboards are up touting the initiative. Nearly 1,500 bags have been packed so far, but BPS will need to pack more to provide for the about 5,000 babies born in Brevard each year.
Members of local hospitals, school district staff, chambers of commerce, and School Board members Katye Campbell and Cheryl McDougall gathered Monday morning to pack about 400 bags.
Children will be provided more books at ages 1, 2 and 3, Mullins said.
Mullins remarked at a School Board meeting last Tuesday that when district staff reached out to local hospital groups Health First, Steward Health Care and Parrish Medical Center, “it was the fastest absolute yes I had heard.”
“I made a phone call to each of the CEOs in the organization and I said, ‘You know, we’ve got this crazy idea of connecting with all the families who are having kids in our community every day throughout the year,’” Mullins said. “‘The problem is I don’t know who they are, but you do because they come through your birthing centers. Would you allow us to provide for you these resource packets or bags for families?’ and immediately it was the quickest absolute yes I’ve ever received from a business partner in the community.”
The hospital groups are also helping to fund the initiative.
“Reading regularly to young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent-child relationships at a critical time in child development, which in turn builds language, literacy and social and emotional skills that last a lifetime,” Timothy Laird, chief medical officer for Health First Medical Group, said. “So again, we are privileged and honored to partner with our public schools in this important Thrive by Five initiative.”
The district is also working to develop an app to go along with the initiative, though Bruhn said it’s not yet clear when the app will be ready.