WELCOME TO THE STORY TIME PROJECT!

The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you'll go!"
-Dr. Seuss

Reading is fundamental.  Whether you major in English, science, math, art, or history, reading is at the heart of education.  It is one of the most important social factors in America today (xxv).  It has the possibility of destroying ignorance, poverty, despair, and sometimes imprisonment-if people know how to and want to read.
By the age of four, children already understand 2/3 to 3/4 of the words they will use in the future (13). As you read to children, you're supplying them with all the sounds that will make up the words they will someday need to read and understand (13).  And stories provide valuable background knowledge of things that aren't in their immediate neighborhood (13).  A child's vocabulary upon entering school is a prime predictor of school success or failure. But not all children start off on an even playing field.  Some children face a gigantic word gap that impedes reading progress, and their desire to read, throughout school.  Children in poverty on average have heard 32 million less words by age four than children of professionals (13). A teacher would have to speak 10 words a second for nine hundred hours to catch up that child by the end of the year (15).  
There's an old adage that: what we teach our children to love and desire will always outweigh what we make them learn. As Story Time readers, we attempt to fuel (or in some cases start) a passion for reading in young children.  Through reading aloud to children, we help to improve their reading, writing, speaking, listening-and best of all-their attitudes about reading by teaching children to associate reading with pleasure (xxi).  We entertain, bond, inform, reassure, arouse curiosity, inspire, and provide a reading role model (4).  We want to work to bridge education gaps and create lifetime readers.
---Hold on a second!  I thought I was volunteering to just read for fun! ---
You are.  All you are expected to do is go and read to children, enjoy some of your old favorite books, and perhaps play a few songs or games with fidgety listeners.  But it is important to know the immense reach of what "just reading" to children can do.

Trelease, Jim. The Read-Aloud Handbook.  6th ed. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2006.