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| What libraries are doing |
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- Early Literacy materials/collections
- Atmosphere/children's environments
- Programming
- Training for staff and parents/caregivers
- Policies, partnerships, and outreach
Jump to Library policies
Jump to Community partnerships
Jump to Outreach
Jump to Further ideas/resources
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| Policies, partnerships, and outreach |
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You can also download the entire list of Early Literacy activities currently undertaken by Oregon public libraries as an RTF (word processing) document or a PDF document.
Library policies
- Institutional cards – available to schools and nonprofits, offering borrowing privileges for students by institution.
- Bilingual library card applications (English and Spanish) plus translated program fliers.
- Different kinds of library cards (we use a large board card for babies).
- Library budgets for children’s staff, resources, programs, and outreach efforts.
- Potential levy to fund a fulltime children’s outreach person.
- Educator and homeschoolers library cards “Educator Cards” for 6 weeks.
- Advocacy efforts at all levels, Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), American Library Association, partners; working within libraries, Library Advisory Board, Boards, library foundations – focusing efforts on early literacy
- Library-based Executive Teams focused on early literacy – providing support to outreach staff.
- Preschool Early Literacy Committees—keeping staff trained and their skills refreshed.
- Developing grants and alternative funding sources to support early literacy programs.
- Renovating our libraries (improved children’s area and family reading areas) and using special tax levies/mil/private foundation money to support youth services and Spanish-speaking programs.
- Developing mission statements with our boards: Cedar Mills' example is “Encourage early literacy for kids.”
- The Board will concentrate on Every Child Ready To Read @ Your Library – as part of library’s role in carrying out its lifelong reading theme. This is further supported by the Friends of the Library – coordinating with other agencies to obtain a grant to support early literacy activities.
- We have eliminated all fines on juvenile books.
- We are on the first name basis with elected officials to tell them how important early literacy is.
- We provide 150 FREE youth library cards, which allows us to serve kids who live in areas without supported public library services. We also offer these free cards to parents with younger children to provide access to families.
Community partnerships
- Partnerships with Head Start – including presentations to parents attending monthly meetings at the library on early literacy.
- We listen to parents: our active listening led to the development of the Kid Kits.
- We participate in publisher-sponsored book giveaways.
- Outreach to teen moms and pregnant women in partnership with healthcare providers and school districts.
- Participation in Parent-Educators Networks
- Waiting room collections in various locations (Department of Motor Vehicles; Salvation Army).
- Library on Wheels: vans stop at child care centers and in-home centers with picture books for 3-5 year olds.
- Board books placed in the maternity wing of hospitals.
- LIBROS outreach: 9 hours of 25-30 storytimes delivered in Spanish to migrant worker camps each month, reaching 300+ children.
- Chair, Elementary School Site Council – allows me to leverage the public library with school influencers.
- Annual Head Start Day – coordinated event for families and teachers in Multnomah County, with library card signup, interpreters, storytimes, and free book giveaways.
- Baby Gift Program: Hospitals provide names of parents of newborns and we mail Baby Kits with a Baby Library Card, and coupons for free book (co-sponsored with mayors and county); Bags for newborns are delivered to hospitals, with information about why it is important to read to babies (for parents) and books for newborns. Encourages new parents (book is Goodnight Moon in English or Spanish). Includes a coupon that can be redeemed at the library for a toy and Read to Me magnet. Healthy Start also helps distribute growth charts / we help out at the library; Board books given to all newborns in Harney County.
- Outreach to corporate-based child care providers.
- Partnering with schools to work with the bilingual English As a Second Language kindergartens.
- Partnering with civic groups to make sure all kids can have library cards
- An innovative partnership between the Multnomah County Library and the Oregon Symphony brings Symphony Storytimes to four area libraries each season (for ages 2-7 and their parents). Musicians give life to the storytelling experience by choosing and/or composing music that best illustrates the story and the characteristics of their instrument.
- Library card recruitment outreach efforts (youth/adult services) to low income housing development and migrant worker camps.
- Presentations in the community: How to Read to your kids for parents of incoming kindergarteners; birth-3; and other groups.
- Spotlight on Schools; Spotlight on Head Start – programs targeting high risk children, designed for parents with younger siblings. Coordinated with the school library, includes tours, library cards, Open House, pizza, prizes, with a talk to parents about the importance of reading aloud.
- Working collaboratively with others in our community. Some examples include:
- The Lane Library League helps with outreach to unserved areas of Lane County. Cards for Kids is one such program – supports the outreach efforts of 7 libraries to offer cards to non-residents through collaborative agreements (would like to expand this program to include all households with children);
- Past LSTA grant & OCF-grant-funded school libraries plus the Tillamook Commission on Children & Families are working together on a project – making 100+ kits more. The Educational Service District has offered to store the kits until the new Tillamook Library building is completed. This partnership is aided by a delivery courier. Kits are in English and Spanish and will aid training for parents (delivered in Spanish).
- Partnerships with Healthy Start and homeless shelters. We used to have the worst 1st and 3rd grade reading indicators, now we have the best! (Astoria)
- Partnering with Even Start
- Partnering with the Commission on Children and Families
- Partnering with the Oregon Center for Career Development in Early Childhood Care and Education at Portland State University
- Partnering with elementary schools to reach the children that didn’t go to child care (may have been in family-provided care). We work with principals to reach the kids who are still at home. Early literacy classes are offered to K-1st graders. We ask the teachers to invite the younger siblings of these older kids and offer classes in Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian and English (offering food, free books, and parent manuals).
- A pilot program with OSU Extension, Community College, and the Food Bank: Cooking and Learning with Children. Includes books, models teaching new skills around food and nutrition, social eating together / learning together empowering
Shared positions (community & school district) – high risk children are with relative/family-based caregivers. Early Childhood Education students are being trained as mentors to model how to read to children, reading kits, books, library lists, environmental assessment, and making at home visits.
- Partnering with elementary schools and early childhood schools to offer an after school program, plus Parent Nights/Family Nights as kick-off event to the start of classes.
- Working with WIC (Women, Infants, Children) program at the County Health Dept.
- We offer storytimes on WIC days once a week. Kids sit on the storytelling rug, and listen to music and books while their mothers visit the WIC nurse. Followed by free book giveaway to kids (In some counties, one hour of parent education is required to maintain eligibility for WIC program).
- At-Risk Centers: Books & Babies for parents of newborns.
- Take Off! and Up & Away programs are offered at the Salvation Army’s school supply site to reach the most needy families.
- Relationship-building efforts in the community, including Baby Fairs (The Library is here… and everywhere).
- Attending the Kindergarten Round-up to reach out to the younger sibs of kindergarteners –
- Some parents don’t feel comfortable in schools, so these events offer other times for parents to visit the schools.
- Visits to tribal child care centers – parents are also encouraged to bring their babies to storytimes. We say “YES” to all invitations – opportunity to become part of their community and to build trust. We attend pow-wows, dancing events, and spaghetti dinners.
- We show up at outside events in the kids’ lives to build rapport with families. We attend teen parents’ performance nights – they get to know us.
- Attending parent lunch support groups designed to increase parent participation in schools – many parents had a bad experience in school or have cultural discomfort because of their lack of English language skills. These events are held in the gym – not a classroom or a cafeteria. Title I Schools and Head Start has to provide parent education. These parent lunch support groups provide the meals and we provide the “brain food” – the program.
- Board books, posters at WIC Office and Health Dept. We are adding collections to their service sites.
- First Books for new babies – a group of grandmas visiting with baskets and new mommy tips – idea came from the hospitals to add a book to their baskets. We got a grant to purchase board books, so we shared the wealth.
- Healthy Start partnership: Living & Learning with Infants and Toddlers.
- Traveling storytellers to preschools, child care centers, elementary schools K-1st grades, WIC sites (food & nutrition programs).
- Programs for teen parenting at high schools.
- Participate in Healthy Beginnings screenings; children get books.
- Together with Books, a Central Oregon Pediatricians program that is part of Ready Set Read with doctors. Friends of the Library gave us funds to purchase free books and brochures for 10,000 children during their well child visits.
- Cardboard books purchased as part of Ready Set Go – given to firstborn child of every family in Deschutes County.
- Book bags are left at dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms for reading together.
- Health Dept. partnered on small grant to purchase books to give to nurses on home visits.
- Kids First – we are going door to door with library, policy, fire dept and other community services to talk about early literacy.
- Healthy Start partnership Welcome Baby program.
- Partner with Hispanic orgs – Latino Festival (music & food)
- Member of the Oregon Reading Association.
- We stress the importance of reading to parents, and give literacy presentations to other groups.
- We meet the new kindergarteners and their parents: a school district grant together with a Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy grant supports this effort. The kindergarteners and their parents visit the library, learn how to use it, hear storytime, and promote SRP.
- We belong to Early Literacy Coalitions serving at risk children.
- We work with Family Support Centers.
- We belong to the Jackson County Association for the Education of Young Children (JCAYC). Together, we work with volunteers to offer parent trainings on early brain research, and relationship building with their children.
- Early childhood teachers at Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University teach classes to students in early childhood development education – these students are learning to see the library as a resource.
- We have an Early Literacy Committee composed of staff who motivate all youth librarians to incorporate the latest research into their storytimes.
We partner with the Oregon Childhood Development Coalition, and create bookmark invitations targeting parents of newborns at local hospitals.
- We provide books for home visits and welcome baby visits (in English and Spanish).
- Every spring and fall, we take bags of books to the Oregon Department of Employment, leaving books for the children of clients and coupons for free books.
- In Hood River, we have a Families First Network (pre-Healthy Start). We collaborate with Head Starts and Dept of Employment.
- We provide books in clinic/hospital waiting rooms, plus use the Home Visitors Network and the Child Care Partners Network to facilitate our outreach efforts (shared copies of a cool calendar and banner project from Ithaca, New York called Rx New Baby).
- We collaborate with our local Child Care Resources and Referral Network and offer View & Reflect videos aids used to train/test child care providers.
- We partner with English as a Second Language teachers to do outreach to low-income housing units. We took our Summer Reading Program to their home, made it available to all ages, including parents, and watched participation mushroom.
- We partner with local churches, using their vans to bring kids to our special programs (e.g. Snake Man).
- We have a Youth Literacy Coalition – partner with service organizations to give away free books (Reading is Fundamental).
- We provide free books to homeless shelters and shelters for battered spouses (who go there with their children).
- We provide collections of books to waiting rooms in doctor’s office and clinics.
- We belong to our Storytellers Guild – which trains volunteers to present storytimes at child care centers and housing developments.
- We have a Children’s Bookmobile that visits high school child care centers for teen parents and other center locations. We partner with Kids on the Block, latchkey programs, and make other community stops where young children and their parents gather. We park the Bookmobile and do programs.
- Despite a lack of tax-supported libraries, we’ve partnered to offer FREE library cards (for ages 0-14).
- We’ve partnered with the Virginia Garcia Clinic to establish a collection of Spanish language picture books (85).
Community leaders are invited to the library to read aloud on a theme (e.g. Chief of Police).
- We encourage our staff to read “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” (a must-read title if you plan to do outreach to persons of low income).
- We formed the Eastern Oregon Early Literacy & Learning League (ELLL), established in 2003 as a multi-county collaborative effort (Umatilla, Morrow, Union, Harney, and Wallowa counties) to provide exemplary early literacy programs for children, their parents, and caregivers (includes Training Wheels, Take Off!, Story Time Express, First Steps, and Storytime on Wheels).
- Serving on community committees, like Multnomah County’s Leaders Roundtable (helping make the connection between 3rd grade reading benchmarks and early literacy efforts that start at birth).
- Take Home Book Bag Program: Outreach with partners (child care providers, health providers, Head Start and other community-based groups) to at risk children. These book bags say “read to me” and contain age-appropriate books. Can be exchanged weekly at these mini-libraries hosted by partners.
Outreach
- Visits to first grade classes – library card sign-up with coupons for free books when they use their new cards.
- Tours for preschools and child care centers (includes a storytime and library card promotional activities).
- Tours for elementary school children (kindergarteners, 1st and 2nd graders) includes library card sign-up.
- Storytime Express: visits to 8 different child care sites monthly, with storytimes and collections of books, plus free book giveaways to children and early education titles to the site.
- First Books: giveaways to children in 4 housing projects.
- Sound bites on the radio and talk shows – the library has educational things to talk about. Example: Family Talk Show will run our sound bites.
- We’ve produced interstitials – what happens in between – PBS filmed one minute stories that are run in between two PBS programs for kids.
- We offer DIAL-A-STORY – story changes every two weeks. These stories are recorded and saved on voicemail.
- We work with new immigrants, many of who have no concept of public libraries and books.
- Story vans (primarily in Klamath Falls) to child care providers monthly – includes two people reading storytime and doing mini-training for providers. Leave behind crafts and 10 books.
- We publish a monthly newsletter for teen parents (provided to high school).
- Preschool teachers can “call in” to ask us to pull together our collections in support of their storytime programs at their preschools.
- Public Relations support: Event calendars and print materials to develop community partnerships, and funding for radio and TV spots.
- Weekly story bags are delivered to branches. These include books, puppets, felt boards, etc. Courier delivered – the schedule is part of our calendar announcements. These are age-specific bags that include (with the exception of pop-up books) items found in the general collection. Jackson County is divided into 4 regions – 4 bags go out to the library branches – cost effective and time efficient to have rotating book bags Taking It On The Road Story bags (TOR). It is easier to recruit volunteers and staff to do storytimes if they can select and choose from among the pile of items in the story bags. They’re also encouraged to supplement the bags and they know what is coming in advance through the calendar announcements.
- We deliver deposit collections monthly to child care providers (boxes of 50 books).
- Think Link preschool students visit the library regularly-- central location for class visits – easy to walk to the library for these programs.
- Picture Book Bags – Collections of picture books in English & Spanish delivered to child care centers.
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| Further ideas/resources |
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Looking for more ideas on how to improve your library's atmosphere and children's area? Check out some of these additional resources:
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