Support us provide books with special needs characters and deliver parents tips and ideas for sharing books with children who have special needs to make a more inclusive society. These books will go into schools across the country and support families with and without children with special needs to see themselves through the books.
Every family has the right, regardless of ability, to participate in a broad range of activities and contexts as full members of families, communities, and society. According a recent position statement from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), quality early childhood inclusion is key for families to feel that their family can be full members of society. Early childhood inclusion is described to have the defining features of access, participation, and support.
The special book collection contains books that focus around characters who have special needs across the spectrum provides access for children to see themselves and others in the pages of the book. RAR also created a menu of participation strategies for parents of children with disabilities that struggle with books. Each book also contains a bookplate with support tips and ideas for sharing books with children who have special needs.
Through the initial program launch, close to 1000 families in inclusion programs will receive the RAR Exceptional Diversity Collection materials. Each year RAR provides vital materials and support to over 130,000 US families. By improving the language and literacy skills of children at risk of educational failure and strengthening parent-child relationships and family educational involvement, together we are moving the needle to improve child literacy across the country.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
