Prime Time Family Reading is a six-week reading, discussion, and storytelling program held at public libraries, schools, or community centers across Kentucky. A humanities scholar and a storyteller act as session leaders to conduct weekly storytelling and discussion sessions based on award-winning children's picture books. Participants are elementary age children and the significant adults in their lives. Prime Time is a powerful tool to stimulate communication between children and parents, teaching them how to model storytelling and discussion in the home.

Prime Time Family Reading is a registered trademark, is a project of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. National expansion is in cooperation with the American Library Association Public Programs Office and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, dedicated to expanding American understanding of history and culture. This program is brought to Kentucky by Kentucky Humanities and community sponsors such as the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, the Wood and Marie Hannah Foundation, the PNC Foundation, and more.

What does Prime Time Family Reading do?

• Reinforces the role of family as a major social and economic unit
• Trains parents and children to bond together around the act of reading
• Teaches parents and children to read and discuss humanities topics such as fairness, greed, honor, and deceit
• Encourages low-literacy, low-income parents to enter or continue their own educational programs
• Helps parents and children learn how to select books and become active library users
• Facilitates community connection amongst families, libraries, schools, and other core social unit

Since 2004, Prime Time Family Reading has reached over 4,800 families and over 16,000 individual participants in 88 Kentucky counties.

Want to bring Prime Time Family Reading to your community? Read more below!