Lire/Imagine/Read

Literacy starts at birth or, as research suggests, in utero. Research shows a strong relationship between early positive literacy experiences and improved brain development. 

Lire/Imagine/Read is a program that integrates literacy promotion into health care practice, and provides books to families of children who visit or stay at The Montreal Children's Hospital. 

As part of the project:

  • All children aged 0-5 who visit selected clinics receive a book in their mother tongue. Parents are given a bookmark and information that explains the importance of reading;
  • Health care professionals screen families for literacy orientation;
  • Some outpatient waiting rooms have a "reading corner", where volunteers read to children to model reading for parents, and to help decrease the stress of waiting.
  • All wards have volunteers trained to read to individual children.
  • A new program with teenage mothers and their infants started in 2010.

Other literacy programs at the hospital include:

  • Biblio-Express offers books and encouragement to read to hospitalized children.
  • Books for Babies gives books to parents in the NICU .
  • An annual celebration of Family Literacy Day at The Montreal Children's Hospital helps raise family and staff awareness about the importance of literacy.

This project has received support from the Golfapalooza Classic, the Alva Foundation, The Montreal Children's Auxiliary and The Centre for Literacy.

Help your child learn to read

Help your child learn language: for children 0-2 years old  (also available in Tamil , Urdu , Arabic ,Chinese and Spanish )