Arlington Public Library's "Life Through Literacy" program was created specifically to aid teenage parents in the Arlington Public School District. These student participants are taught that reading, singing, and speaking to their babies will better prepare their children for school and work in the future.

Many of these young parents do not know that teaching their children nursery rhymes helps to introduce them to concepts like vocabulary and rhythm. The parents are also taught that encouraging positive experiences with books can help foster a love of reading as a child grows older. The goal of this program is to educate these teen parents on how best to teach literacy to their children so that their babies can grow up to be successful.

An Arlington librarian visited five AISD high school locations this past spring and spent time each week teaching the participants that they possess the tools needed to be great parents. Over the course of five sessions, young parents shared how their babies have enjoyed and positively reacted to the songs and books they took home after each meeting.

Every Life Through Literacy participant received a picture book at the end of each session to build their child's home library. Some of these young parents start out with no baby books, so receiving a free gift for their child is always a special experience.

One of the most important things that these parents are taught by this program is that the parent is their child's first and most important teacher. Life Through Literacy's aim is to demonstrate to these new parents that they are very capable of teaching literacy to their child.