A six-year-old near St. Louis just did something most adults never will. Malachi Henderson completed the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program at St. Louis County Library, logging one thousand books before his first day of school. For context, the average American reads about twelve books a year, according to Pew Research. His mom, Angel Dallas, started reading to him before he was born. By age three, he was reading on his own.
The program behind this milestone is refreshingly simple. Families track the books they read together and earn prizes as they hit milestones, and hundreds of libraries nationwide participate. If you’re on the Suncoast, there’s a good chance a branch near you in Sarasota, Bradenton, or Venice runs something similar. No tuition, no special equipment, just a library card and a routine.
The payoff goes well beyond a prize shelf. Research shows third graders who aren’t reading at grade level are four times more likely to drop out of high school. As Malachi’s mom put it, reading is the foundation for every other subject. Ten minutes a night, one bedtime story at a time, is how a thousand books happens. So what’s the book your family keeps coming back to?
