DEAR@Schools Programme

A problem that I find a handful of preschools encounter is budget. With a tight budget, it becomes difficult for a preschool to provide all the items or materials that the educator/s of the school’s may wish to have. In this post, I will be relating a useful resource that will aid in raising the quality of the preschool and also help alleviate stress encountered from the tight budget.

Books are essential to a school. The more books the better. Students receive a good number of diverse reading materials and also an increased amount of interaction with books. This has a positive effect on their language and literacy development. National Library Board, Singapore, came up with a programme called, “DEAR @ Schools Programme”. D.E.A.R represents, drop everything and read. In this programme, schools are allowed to loan (borrow) between 1000 to 2000 books for a period of 9 weeks for their own reading and accessibility. Schools can loan these books from their nearest public library. More information can be found here and here.  

Any educator or teacher of the school can write in their request to, ask@nlb.gov.sg, on this programme. Do specify the school name and location, and you will be directed to the librarian in-charge nearest to your school.  

I hope this resource comes in handy for the preschools out there who are experiencing such problems. In any case, please pass on this information to those who need it.