Miss Ruby’s Kids is always recruiting families with children between the ages of 2 and 3 1/2 to participate in our ParentChild+ program where throughout the course of 2 cycles they will receive 92 home visits and be gifted 46 books and educational toys.
Families are paired with an Early Learning Specialist (ELS) who, whenever possible, resides in their community and shares their language and cultural background. The ELS will visit each family twice-weekly in their home, at a time convenient for them. During the first session of the week, a book or educational toy will be gifted to the family and used to model reading, conversation, and play activities designed to stimulate parent-child interaction, develop language and literacy skills, and build school readiness. Each gift comes with a curriculum guide sheet with additional literacy and educational activities for the parent and child to engage in until their next visit. During the second session of the week, the review session, the ELS will again model reading, conversation, and play activities, encouraging parents to engage their children with the book or toy and to ask questions, while providing encouragement and praise for all their efforts. Through this process, parent-child verbal interaction increases, and parents/primary caregivers learn new approaches to parenting, discover how to create literacy-rich home environments, and prepare to be their children’s academic advocates. Children learn early on the joy of reading and develop language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that are critical to school readiness and school success.