Children that are exposed to reading programs when young, such as preschool age, tend to show more emergent literacy behaviors in reading skills. According to the studies conducted, children who are exposed to reading at a young age are more likely to enjoy it and be able to accomplish it easier than other children.
Most public libraries offer free programs to children in the community. Preschool programs are common for children around the ages of three, four and five. These literacy programs are designed to capture the children's attention and boost their imaginations and interests. Librarians use entertainment types such as songs, poetry, puppets and crafts to accomplish this. They teach the preschoolers that reading is fun. These activities and encouragement are thought by researchers to be beneficial to these children in helping develop early literacy and communication skills.
Summer reading programs are also a common program offered to children from Kindergarten to fifth grade. These programs promote children to read in the summer, when they normally wouldn't be reading. With these programs, children are usually invited to come to the library once a week for a special program with a speaker or entertainer. Aa a result of this, the children are inspired to read books. There are often incentives, which usually includes prizes. These programs tend to cause children to make a point of coming to the library every week. Without the programs, the children may not visit the library as often. The evaluation conducted in Pennsylvania showed that many of the libraries' circulation rate of books increases between 6% and 10% in the summer. This is attributed to these summer programs.
Libraries are able to hold a lot of different types of materials. Libraries have books, magazines, publications, videos and music CDs. Children benefit from these materials and are able to visit a library and check out almost any type of material desired. Libraries therefore play a role in exposure of a variety materials to children. Most families do not purchase every book or movie desired, but instead they visit libraries because of the quantity of information these repositories of information have.