Born to Read Trainers

The Bi-County Conference in Sullivan, Maine, is sponsored by the Child Care Opportunities RDC for Hancock and Washington counties. This April, Bahia Yackzan facilitated two workshops sessions, each one hour and fifteen minutes long, on Many Eyes, Many Voices. She chose to distribute one copy of Thanks to the Animals and one Somali Alphabet book to each participant. Since she had so little time, Bahia made a point of asking the group to state their needs/requests/questions at any point so they would leave with what they came for. Her major goal was to communicate the value of the program and entice the participants to take the full 6-hour training. However, she took the time to read Thanks to the Animals aloud and take the group through the corresponding section of the Activity & Resource Guide. She also played the Somali Alphabet CD, describing this as “a great opportunity to talk about developmentally appropriate exposure, how great it is for even the littlest ones to hear all kinds of sounds.”

We are so pleased to be able to spread the messages of our Born to Read trainings at these conferences around the state. Many thanks to the RDC staff and conference coordinators who have thought of us, and to all the presenters who’ve ably represented us.