Join Us For Brain Awareness Night at The Urban Child Institute
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Here at The Urban Child Institute, we are in the brain awareness business.
The pivotal impact of brain development for our children and its life-defining consequences are an unwavering focus of our work, and each year we host a special public forum to discuss specific issues related to it with the community.
Join The @UrbanChildInst & me to learn about Early Reading & #Literacy at 6PM on March 12th! Tweet this!It’s that time again, and on Thursday, March 12 at 6 p.m., our annual Brain Awareness Night will take place at The Urban Child Institute at 600 Jefferson Ave. The event is free and open to the public, with free parking.
Developing Brains and Literacy
This year’s invited speakers are nationally known experts who will spotlight the importance of early literacy and language development in our children’s first years. Helen Perkins, Ed.D., from the University of Memphis and Daniela O’Neill, Ph.D., from the University of Waterloo (Canada) will be joining us for this special evening.
Dr. Perkins is the Principal Investigator and Project Director of the Memphis Literacy Academy, a collaboration to enhance the literacy of urban students. She is also a National Literacy Consultant on projects such as the Reading First Teacher Education Network.
Read more about Dr. Helen Perkins
Dr. O’Neill is founder and director of the University of Waterloo Centre for Child Studies. She is the developer and author of the Language Use Inventory (LUI), an assessment tool used internationally by clinicians and researchers to gauge language development in young children.
Read more about Dr. Daniela O'Neill
Whether you are a parent, grandparent, educator, minister, caregiver, businessperson, or someone active in civic and nonprofit activities, you will find the symposium captivating and interesting, and most of all, actionable and relevant. We believe it is within the power of our community to give every child a good start in life.
Literacy’s Building Blocks
Healthy brain development and strong literacy development are both built on a foundation of nurturing relationships in the first three in a child’s life. It is a time of astounding growth in a child’s brain, which is producing trillions of connections in networks that will be the foundation for learning, emotions, and behavior.
It is also a time when activities like shared reading and verbal interactions with parents and caregivers are contributing to the beginnings of literacy. Word games, rhymes, songs, stories, and books are not merely forms of entertainment for children. They are in fact the building blocks for literacy and language.
We hope you will join us as we discuss these important early childhood issues at this year’s Brain Awareness Night. This event is produced in partnership with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s Neuroscience Institute (NI). We are especially grateful to the NI’s Paul Herron, Ph.D., and William E. Armstrong, Ph.D., for organizing an outstanding symposium on literacy, a subject that is crucial to the future of Memphis and Shelby County.
RSVP today, seating is limited!
Join Us For Brain Awareness Night
The Urban Child Institute, 600 Jefferson Avenue
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
March 12, 2015
Free and Open to the Public
