San Mateo Library Adds Play 2 Learn Center

The San Mateo Main Library Children's Department has expanded its learning experience for kids with a new Play 2 Learn Center recently installed at the library.

The center features two kiosks holding eight interactive learning games, which emphasize pre-literacy skills and practices, library officials announced Wednesday.

According to the library, studies have shown that young children learn through play, that parents are a child’s first teacher, and that reading every day prepares kids for school.

This supportive and nurturing environment for play emphasizes the development of pre-literacy skills in 0-5-year-old children through enriched vocabulary, print motivation and awareness, narrative skills, letter knowledge and phonological awareness, the library reported.

This type of learning environment also benefits caregivers in their role as their child’s first teacher.

The Play 2 Learn Center’s kiosks and interactive play activities are designed exclusively for public libraries by the Burgeon Group of Phoenix, Arizona. The Library’s Play 2 Learn Center was funded by a grant from the San Mateo Public Library Foundation.