Nicole B. Roberts, a stay-at-home mother and prominent author from Midland, is using this holiday season to raise awareness for literacy and encourage parents to help their children sharpen their literacy skills.
"The people that I knew who made reading and education a priority really are the ones who have become leaders in our world today. It's important for me as a mom that my kids are exposed at a young age to books because I feel that will make them into leaders some day." Roberts said,
According to Roberts, reading and improved literacy has a variety of benefits and can impact people in many different ways. In an interview, she said that she feels that there should be far more books that feature positive themes to teach children while simultaneously encouraging literacy.
Roberts has been following her own advice, writing books that draw from topics that include inclusivity and respect.
One beneficiary of positive literature and reading content is Ginamarie Soto, the owner of The Little Gym of Midland, who said, "Literacy is truly a full focus-point idea in education that it really emphasizes on every single element of our classes. Again, reading is the groundwork for anything you do in life."
Roberts says that the impact of these interactions can be vast. "I think it is important that we create books with a positive mindset," she said. "This is so we can perpetuate through the reading to other things like home to the kids and the parents."
With that in mind, Roberts says that she hopes that books can be of more focus this holiday season when parents and relatives are shopping for gift.
"Especially in this technology driven age, kids need to have an actual physical book in there hands where they can flip the pages the can smell the paper," she concluded. "They can really experience the book and not just see a screen to develop readers that can last a lifetime."