BookBonds: Like Covalent Bonds, only better!

Since my blog receives millions of hits*, I figured there's no better place to advertise Rachel's new start-up: BookBonds.

The idea is simply this: New parents love to take their babies to all manner of "mommy and me" type classes, for things like swimming, music, and tumbling. But there's a void of classes that are educational in the classic sense. Leveraging her teaching skills and experience -- not to mention her love of little ones -- Rachel has designed a curriculum to teach parents how they can give their kids an early start on reading and learning.

The principle behind the class is largely based upon Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook. This volume cites numerous statistics suggesting that the greatest predictor of success in elementary school is the frequency with which a child was read to from an early age. Children who are read to daily will hear 3-4 times as many spoken words as those who are not, and subsequently have a much easier time grasping language and communication skills.

Bookbonds is a class that meets one hour per week for six weeks. Parents bring their infants or toddlers to the class. Rachel's curriculum is designed to make the classes fun for the kids and educational for the parents, as they pick up skills they can use at home with their children.

As Rachel put it, if BookBonds had existed 10-12 years ago, she might not have so many kids in her remedial reading class in Alexandria Public School.

Tell all your friends! Especially the ones with babies who live in the DC metro area.


*Hit count is based on extrapolation of monthly hits to a projection of total visitors per century.

P.S. - I don't really remember what Covalent Bonds are all about, but I'm pretty confident that BookBonds are better.