Laredo Learns

"Making Laredo The Best Place To Be Born"

Reading and storytelling with babies and children promotes brain development, imagination, language and learning.

More than 60 percent of low-income families have no books at all in their homes for children. Unite for Literacy refers to the scarcity of books in the home as “book deserts.” Book deserts are more likely to be found in economically disadvantaged counties and Hispanic homes.

Children who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school. How often you read with a child at home influences how many words they would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to, 4,662 words; 1-2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3-5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.

58% of Webb County is considered a childcare desert with either no childcare providers or so few options that there are more than three times as many children as licensed child care slots.

Providing a brighter future for children in Webb County relies on increasing access to books, high-quality early learning experiences and age-appropriate resources for family members serving as first educators. Laredo Learns provides access to high-quality early learning experiences and resources in Webb County by connecting family members to experiences and resources, critical for early early brain development and school readiness.

Parents playing with their child

Connecting family members serving as first educators to early childhood experiences, critical for early brain development and school readiness

Laredo Learns 2030

Healthy Beginnings, Supported Families, High-Quality Early Care and Learning

System Map

Report and Recommendations

Parents and child reading

Laredo Stakeholder Engagement

Summary and Trends

Available Resources in Laredo

List and Providers

Brain Bags by Laredo Learns

Laredo Learns members

Laredo Learns and its community partners have created the Brain Bag as a resource filled with learning materials. Included are guidance, parenting tips, online child development insights and prompts, and more. New parents can consider the Brain Bag as a tool to help them ensure their children meet critical growth and learning benchmarks for their children.

Little Free Libraries

Take a book, share a book. Little Free Library is a free access to all members of our community. Everyone should have the opportunity to discover a personally relevant book to read is not limited by time, space, or privilege. Learn how to start your Little Library today and view the map of all libraries in your community.

READY! for Kindergarten

Toddler playing with blocks and toys

READY! for Kindergarten is a proven school-readiness program that, for more than 20 years, has helped parents and caregivers of children from birth to age five build early literacy, math, and social-emotional skills through brief workshops and take-home activities, organized around three keys—Targets (age-level learning goals), Training (“Play With a Purpose” strategies), and Tools (books, toys, and games) to make learning at home easy and effective

H-E-B Literacy Events

Laredo Learns and H-E-B invite the Laredo community to stop by their local H-E-B store to receive free books and learn how to incorporate literacy into day-to-day life.

In partnership with the TAMIU College of Education, the Office of Global and Community Engagement has developed a calendar of events at the local H-E-B locations.

All events take place on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. as scheduled below by store location: