CAPE began as a combined effort involving schools and families. The schools were to improve instruction and collect data, while parents were to read to their children for 20 minutes a day.

That effort has grown into a partnership involving Madison County schools, the Leadership Academy of Madison County and the United Way’s Born Learning program. Five site coordinators take the initiative into homes through “literacy-basket parties.”

CAPE goes into homes to help families read

“The coordinators give the parents information on a strategy called PEER reading,” said Shelly Hasty, one of the site coordinators. “It’s more about dialogical reading — having a conversation with your child while reading the book.”

Host families invite at least four friends to the party, which is provided free of charge by Born Learning.

Amber Geiger, an Anderson resident with a 5-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old daughter, recently hosted one of the literacy-basket parties. She, like every party host, was given a basket full of teaching tools, including books, nursery rhymes and a jar of Play-Doh.

“I knew (reading to children) was important, but I didn’t know just how important it was,” said Geiger, who has operated a day-care center in her home for about two years.

While she praised the parents that she works with now, she also said she’d had some bad experiences with parents in other cities.

“Some of them just didn’t care,” she said. “It’s frustrating.”

The work of organizations such as CAPE and individuals like Geiger is intended to help raise the quality of area schools