According to data compiled by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, learning to read and write are skills that are essential to a child's success in school and later life.  Research has found that one of the most important activities parents can do to help their child to acquire these necessary literacy skills is to read to and with them frequently.  

Therefore, through a collaboration with one of the local elementary schools Family Resource Youth Service Center Coordinators in LaRue County, the FCS Agent helped adapt and implement a program originally designed by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service called Fathers Reading Every Day into Families Reading Every Day (FRED).  

FRED was a 3 week program designed to encourage families to read together on a daily basis during the month of March which is National Reading Month - a month set aside to motivate people of all ages to read every day.  The target audience for this program were current K-5th graders and their families.  The program was offered to all students and their families in late February at the schools Family Literacy Night with the goal to log their minutes of reading daily whether together or individually for the duration of the 3 week program.  An incentive was offered to the child reading the most minutes during the program.

Thirty-one (31) participants finished the program and turned in a total of 14,715 minutes or 245.25 hours reading.  Many participants reported that the program encouraged them to read daily, increased parental involvement in early literacy development, as well as increased quality time spent together as a family.