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Read-to-me Program

Institutional Libraries and the Read-To-Me Program

An Indiana Read-to-Me Literacy program, a cooperative effort between the Indiana State Library Development Office and the state’s correctional facility libraries began in the fall of 2000. Since then, incarcerated parents have had an opportunity to share the joys of reading with their children.

The Read-to-Me Program encourages offenders in correctional institutions to read to their children. Through this program, the offenders discover the personal value and personal connections for both the child and themselves in developing literacy skills. Parents, regardless of their educational levels, become the child’s first teachers.

The program has four primary objectives:

  • To break the cycle of incarceration and low literacy
  • To educate parents to become their child’s first teacher
  • To instruct parents in the use of children’s books to teach the children in their lives
  • To make personal connections with the children during the period of incarceration

In the beginning, the Indiana State Library Development Office collaborated with the Indiana Center for the Book to provide the program’s components. The Indiana Read-to-Me Program began at one women’s prison and has expanded to institutions for both men and women prisoners and their children. Of the first four partners, three of the institutions used audiocassettes with one of the women’s facilities opting to use videocassettes to share books as well as short personal messages for their children.

Many offenders from the Indiana Women’s Prison, the Plainfield Correctional Facility, the Rockville Correctional Facility, the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility, Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, Indiana State Prison, Atterbury Correctional Facility, Edinburgh Correctional Facility, and Correctional Industrial Facility have been actively involved in the program over the course of the last five years.

Currently, the Indiana State Library Development Office provides children’s books, cassette tapes, and postage for mailing the tapes and books. Grant funds, publisher donations, and local donations enable the program to continue. The library welcomes new and gently used books to assist in the success of this program.

Institutional librarians request books for children up to age 10 for the offenders to select. Offenders work with the facility librarians, teachers, other facility employees, or volunteers to record the books they select. They complete a Family History Survey that addresses their reading experiences. The recorded books and surveys are returned to the Library Development Office. A letter acknowledging the collaboration between the State Library and the correctional facility is sent to the child.

After children receive the packages and communicates about the gift with their incarcerated parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins, step-relatives, and others – a follow-up survey is completed and returned to the Indiana State Library Development Office. The surveys were included in the program to measure the reactions of the incarcerated parents and the responses of the children.

Below are some responses from offenders “in their own words” to survey question 4: Please tell how the Read-To-Me Program has made a difference in your life.

  • “It has helped me bond wit my child. It opened the lines of communication and it’s a way for my child to hear my voice when she wants to. And it’s a good learning tool.”
  • “Yes it has changed my life because, me and my little brother didn’t have nothing in common and now we do! I haven’t seen him 2 ½ years and the first time I seen him he talked about the book!”
  • “It allows me to do something for my son, even though I’m not there.”
  • “It has allowed me to do something special for my sister’s children.”
  • “It keeps me in touch with my daughter and she get to hear my voice any time she want to play the tape.”
  • “My youngest play the tape over and over again. The last book was about learning you’re A.B.C. She like that because she is in headstart and she learning them. My oldest like them also.”
  • “Although communication with them is limited and is subject to their Grandma’s time schedule this program has given me a feeling of satisfaction & fulfillment just knowing that I, as a loving Father, have attempted to bridge the distance.”
  • “I really don’t see or talk to my son. My sister takes the book to him and they read it with me. The read-to-me Program helps me reach out to my son, so he gets to know how I am.”
  • “His mother told me he would ask her to play tape while he looked at books 3 times a day. Make me wish I was home to spend more time with family.”
  • “When I was at home I use to read to my sons every night. Because you’ve given me the chance to read to them agin I know the peace and joy it brings to their hearts and mine also.”
  • “This program help my kids to get use to my voice. It also teaching me some of the parenting skills I need to help raise my kids, which I did not have before.”
  • “They are able to hear grandpapa’s voice and know I have not forgotten about them. It is difficult to explain why I can’t be there for them and even more so when I don’t understand all that has happened.”

For more information about the program or how your library can reach out to offenders in nearby facilities, contact Janet Meek at 317-232-5083 or jmeek@library.in.gov or Marcia Smith-Woodard at 317-232-3719, 800-451-6028 (Indiana only), or mwoodard@library.IN.gov.