Abstract:

According to the American Pediatric Association (APA), reading significantly boosts brain development and strengthens the emotional bond between parent and child. The APA recommends reading to babies daily, as well as reading to older children. However, studies show that only 50% of parents read to their children every day. According to a number of researchers, the best readers are those who became acquainted with books at an early age. When we talk about reading culture, we must start with the family environment, because interest in reading is generated in early childhood. Often, however, parents lack basic knowledge of the right approach to creating interest and love for books and reading in their children.

In this report, the authors analyse the role of the library as an environment, where parents can improve their competencies, increase their knowledge and skills about the right approach to creating interest in books and reading.

Through various linguistic means, children's literature has an emotional impact on the child's psyche. It helps the formation of language and speech, imagination, perceptions, feelings, emotions, thinking and memory, contributes to the lasting and unintentional mastery of knowledge and skills. It is an active component of the socialization process and is the basis for building positive interpersonal relationships.

The report examines the initiatives and programmes implemented by Bulgarian libraries and institutions in support of reading for children, including "Famous Bulgarians read to children", "Reading Marathon", "Magic Pearl", "Book march", etc. The factors that affect children's reading positively or negatively are analysed.

The authors base their assumptions on the thesis that the specific interaction - family - educational institution – library, is one of the most promising areas for stimulating and developing children's reading. The idea is for parents to assess the opportunities that libraries offer as information, pedagogical, cultural and educational institutions for the formation of children's reading culture so that they can grow up literate and knowledgeable. It is the children, since their earliest childhood years, who are the group of readers we need to attract to books and libraries, turning the latter into interesting and attractive places. In libraries it is important to create conditions for stimulating children's interest in reading.

The emphasis is on public libraries, which offer activities for children from 0 months to 6 years of age. In many regions of the country there are well- developed programmes for joint cooperation between libraries and kindergartens. Thus, through organized visits and fun readings and games, children's interest in reading is generated and maintained. Unfortunately, there are still too few reading promotion programmes for preschoolers. It is important to work in this direction also because reading in early childhood boosts the development of auditory memory, enriches speech skills, stimulates the imagination, builds the ability to understand the meaning of what is read.

Fostering reading has long been one of the most important tasks of modern libraries. The authors present their strategy for organizing events, related to the visits and stay of children in libraries in order to make going to the library and reading a pleasure for the youngest - yet, most important - readers.

Keywords:

Libraries, children, reading programmes.