Motheread/Fatheread® Hawai‛i

A Family Literacy and Book Discussion Program

“What you teach people to love, far outweighs what we teach them just to do.”- Jim Trelease, "The Read Aloud Handbook" 3rd ed., 1995.

The Motheread/Fatheread program is a nationally acclaimed family-literacy program aimed at promoting literacy and increasing communication within families.  Through the reading and discussion of award-winning children’s literature, parents learn to become reading role-models for their children, to initiate meaningful discussions about the books, and improve their parenting and literacy skills.

Parents meet in small groups led by trained Motheread facilitators to read children’s books and discuss the themes found in them.  By the end of the class, parents are prepared to take the books home and share them with their family as opposed to just reading them to the kids.  Through the discussions that these books can bring in the home, families learn more about each other, improve their communication and strengthen bonds.

The Hawai’i Council for the Humanities looks to partner with different agencies to provide Motheread/Fatheread classes for their parents and also to train staff to provide these classes.  For more information on Motheread/Fatheread, contact Robert Chang at 808-732-5402.