MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — The Twin Lakes Library System (TLLS) is hosting a new program to help promote family reading time at home thanks to an $8,000 grant from the Georgia Public Library Service.

Prime Time Family Reading Time is a six-week long program targeted toward families with children ages 6 to 10. The goal is to get parents to not only engage in reading time with their kids, but also to discuss what is read.

“We have a scholar from Georgia College and a local storyteller present two books a week,” TLLS Director Stephen Houser said. “They read the stories and ask kids open-ended questions designed to get them to think about the stories.”

The GC scholar is Dr. Hali Sofala-Jones and the storyteller is Jeanette Waddell.

“The parents see when the storyteller performs the story ways to keep the kids’ interest when they’re reading to them at home,” Houser said.

Questions go beyond what happened in the story. Instead children are asked to reflect upon what is read and engage in a discussion.

“That age range, at least in our experience, is the most effective to identify in terms of reading and discussion,” Houser said when asked why 6 to 10 was the targeted age range. “It just works better with that age range. The earlier the better, but sometimes 3- to 5-year-olds have difficulty sitting still with two story times over an hour. That’s why that age range was picked. If the families have younger siblings we do have somebody that will engage them in crafts and other activities at the library during the story times.”

The first Prime Time event was held last Thursday and the second is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday. Meals have been provided by local restaurants Buffington’s, Chick-fil-A, Jimmy Johns and Papa Johns. After mealtime, families engage in story time and discussion until 7:30 p.m.

“Then after that they go home with a copy for each family of the books we’ll talk about next week so they get to read them before they come in,” the library director said.

Families selected for the program thus far have been through Communities in Schools of Milledgeville-Baldwin County.

“We tried to identify at-risk families, so we’ve worked with somebody from Communities in Schools to try and identify some families ahead of time,” said Houser.

There are still slots available in the program, and those wishing to sign up may do so at the Mary Vinson Memorial Library.