January 2009 Articles
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Diane Jones,Children’s Librarian
Coshocton Public Library
Narrative Skills, Print Motivation, Vocabulary, Phonological Awareness, Letter Knowledge, and Print Awareness—what do all of these terms have in common? They are the six pre-reading skills that a child can start learning from birth, identified through decades of early literacy research. Every Child Ready To Read @ your library®, a project of the Public Library Association and the Association for Library Service to Children, divisions of the American Library Association, focuses on training youth librarians with information and materials to equip preschool teachers, day-care providers, and parents with knowledge, materials, and suggestions for activities to enhance pre-literacy development with the young children in their care.
After receiving the Every Child Ready To Read @ your library® Basic and Story Time Trainings, our children’s department staff intentionally adopted the six pre-reading skills by including one or more of them into our weekly preschool story times. Each week we introduce a new letter of the alphabet, hide an item beginning with the letter-of-the week in a surprise bag, share stories and songs which highlight the letter sound, and give each child an AccuCut® /Ellison™ letter cut-out to take home for further re-enforcement. Some of our favorite story times featured: “P is for Party,” with pretzels, popcorn and pennies; “T is for Thanksgiving and Turkey”; and the ever-popular “J-J-J - Jingle Bells.”
In an effort to relay the message outside of our library walls, we took our “show on the road.” Armed with a colorful poster for display, a soft-stuffed baby doll for reading demonstration, lots of books to share, pamphlets to distribute, and our adapted script to accompany the PowerPoint presentation from ALA’s Every Child Ready To Read @ your library ® website, we literally traveled down the street to our county’s Job and Family Services building. There, we met with nine Type-B in-home professional childcare providers, the childcare coordinator and contracted worker for their October and November in-service training sessions. We highlighted the six pre-reading skills and discussed ways that they could incorporate them, while having fun, with the children in their care. In October, we focused on activities for Early Talkers—children from birth to 2 years old and the Talkers—the 2 to 3 year olds. At the November meeting, we reviewed the six skills and highlighted various books, activities, and dialogic reading techniques for Pre-readers—the 4-5 year olds. Following the second session, the evaluation feed-back was positive, indicating that the information was helpful, the presenters were knowledgeable (always a plus), and the techniques will be used with the children in their care.
Every Child Ready To Read @ your library® is a great way to be intentional about equipping children with pre-literacy skills, on an everyday basis, whether inside or outside the library setting. When children find pure joy in the written and spoken word, they receive a jumpstart toward a life-long love for libraries and learning.
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