Read Ready Covington Director Mary Kay Connolly said they worked with many partners and other organizations to put on an Early Childhood Festival. “The governor’s office has rolled out the new early childhood standards that they use in preschools from child care and early learning centers, and with that there are family guides they can find online,” Connolly said.

Kids up to age five were the target audience. At the festival were Lacy Rogers and others from the Roost in Latonia with different activities looking at animal facts. “We’ve got lots of different animal flash cards, some animal noise makers, bird whistles and then some face painting going on and some chalk,” Rogers said.

It was an event created to really enhance literacy and get the minds of these young children working. Parents could gain some knowledge of how important it is to get your child reading and learning.

“Anything we can do to enhance their word knowledge, their word recognition, their letter recognition, can have long-term impacts across their lifespan,” Kate Dean, regional childcare administrator with Child Care Aware of Kentucky said.

Parents said it was nice to see this event come to life and Rogers said she enjoyed working with kids and teaching them something new at the Roost’s booth.

“Help them like learn new animal noises and see what kind of animals interest them and what their favorite animal is. It’s just really interesting,” Rogers said.

Connolly said the goal is to take this event and expand on what they created this year in the future.