• Books for Babies

    First Steps to Literacy

    Books for Babies links health to the importance of early literacy, language and attachment, and meets families in the hospital when a baby is born — an innovative approach to preventing future reading and learning difficulties.

    • Our goal is to help parents understand the critical connection between verbal stimulation, language development and future literacy, and how they can help their babies learn. Our message is that by reading with and talking to children beginning at birth, parents can help their youngsters develop the early literacy skills they will need to succeed in school, and in life.
    • Books for Babies provides families of newborns with a “literacy bag” — a new children’s book and an informational guide for parents — during their stay on maternity units in our 12 partner hospitals.
    • More than 53% of the babies born in the state will go home with a Books for Babies literacy bag this year, and parents who know how to help their child develop critical early literacy skills.
    • A unique feature of our program is the in-hospital visit from a Books for Babies volunteer. To help all families get started, volunteers who have been trained by our program visit with parents on maternity units to introduce Read to Grow and to talk about the “how and why” of reading aloud to babies. Gently used books are available for brothers and sisters of newborns to take home in all partner hospitals to promote family reading time.
    • Families who enroll in our Books for Babies Follow-up Program automatically receive more free children’s books and literacy guidance twice during their baby’s first year of life. All families are encouraged to request children’s books from Read to Grow at any time, from birth through completion of middle school.

    Interested in becoming a Books for Babies volunteer? Please fill out an application

  • Partner Hospitals

    • Yale-New Haven Hospital
    • Griffin Hospital, Derby
    • Hospital of Saint Raphael, New Haven
    • Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, New London
    • Hartford Hospital
    • Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford
    • Manchester Memorial Hospital
    • Bridgeport Hospital
    • St. Vincent’s Medical Center, Bridgeport
    • Sharon Hospital
    • Middlesex Hospital, Middletown
    • Day Kimball Hospital, Putnam