Encouraging Dramatic Play in the Library

In Children and Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children's fall 2024 issue, Wisconsin's own Terry Ehle, Tami Feuerstein and Sally Taylor have a wonderful article on their thoughtful approach to incorporating early literacy practice in everything they do.

The abstract for the article states: "A moving child is a learning child. Playing is the best way to learn. And the number one factor in preparing children for success is loving interaction between them and their primary caregivers—the parents or “embedded” persons who are their first, favorite, and most important teachers. Those research-based beliefs are the foundation of the Lester (Two Rivers, WI) Public Library’s (LPL) early literacy approach, and we build upon it by incorporating into all programs, including dramatic play, the American Library’s Association’s Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) five early literacy practices: read, talk, play, write, and sing."

The article shares the philosophy behind their approach and a ton of ideas and tips on how they created dramatic play spaces that work. 

You can access the article here at the journal's website [Practice the Practices: Kids Learn Big in Dramatic Play Areas. Ehle, Terry et al. Children and Libraries Journal. Fall 2024. Vol 22, No. 3.]

Learn More About ECRR Texts for Caregivers of Tots in WI

from Jeni Schomberg, Public Library Consultant, Library Services Team  DPI's Division for Libraries and Technology 

TALK (Text and Learn for Kindergarten) is a program that delivers early learning activities several times per week via text messages to caregivers of children under 6, in either English or Spanish. Based on Every Child Ready to Read, TALK activities build pre-literacy skills starting from birth, such as hearing letter sounds, building hand muscles and dexterity, and recognizing letters and numbers. Activities also build STEM and social emotional skills to help parents make sure their children are fully prepared for a successful school experience. Libraries can also use TALK to promote library events. 

WiLS is partnering with MCLS to bring this innovative early learning program to Wisconsin libraries. Come join us for an informational webinar to learn all about this exciting, affordable program and how it can work for your patrons!

 

Webinar Details

Jun 13, 2024 11:30 AM

Registration Link

*This webinar will be recorded and delivered to registrants after the session.

Talking IS Teaching

Leah Langy writes in the IFLS blog Keeping up with Kids about a collaborative effort in the Chippewa Valley to help address the 30 million word gap:

There's a group of early childhood professionals (librarians, teachers, family literacy providers, childcare consultants, and more) in the Chippewa Valley working on an initiative to address the 30 million word gap identified by researchers Hart and Risely in 2003.  What's the 30 million word gap?  It is the difference in the number of words spoken to children, depending on their family/childcare situation, by the time they reach age three.  Some hear 30 million fewer words by age three than their counterparts.  The research suggests that kids from lower income families are more likely to hear fewer words.

The group is using the resources, information and graphics from a website promoting talking with preschoolers to plan their work. 

To read more about the project and the links, click here.

Talking IS Teaching

Leah Langby writes in the IFLS blog, Keeping Up with Kids,  about an early literacy community of practice she is part of in the Chippewa Valley and an initiative they are working on:

There's a group of early childhood professionals (librarians, teachers, family literacy providers, childcare consultants, and more) in the Chippewa Valley working on an initiative to address the 30 million word gap identified by researchers Hart and Risely in 2003.  What's the 30 million word gap?  It is the difference in the number of words spoken to children, depending on their family/childcare situation, by the time they reach age three.  Some hear 30 million fewer words by age three than their counterparts.  The research suggests that kids from lower income families are more likely to hear fewer words.

They are using a valuable resource to help them get started: Talking is Teaching.

To read the rest of the KUWK blog post and link to resources, click here.

Calling all YSS Members!

 

Oh, hello fellow members of the Youth Services Section of the Wisconsin Library Association! We may be looking for your help:

• Do you love working with preschoolers?
• Do you share early literacy tips with your families and parents?
• Are you willing to help contribute to our cool YSS project from the comfort of your own library?

Then get in touch with us!

We are about to start work on the 2016 YSS Early Literacy Calendar and we want you!

Each month of the calendar is filled with ideas and activities to bring alive the 5 ECRR (Every Child Ready to Read) practices  - PLAY, TALK, READ, SING, WRITE - plus math, art and science ideas for parents and their preschoolers. Suggestions for activities, ideas and books fill each unique month.

We have twelve YSS members each provide one month of content. It's fast, easy, fun and quick.

If you think you would like to be part of this fun crowd-sourced project, please get in touch with project leaders Betsy Bromley at bbromley@cooney.lib.wi.us  or Katherine Elchert, katherineelchert@ricelakegov.org before  March 31 to express interest. We'll be tapping folks immediately to meet a May 15 deadline!

Go YSS folks!!!!

Easy Early Literacy Spaces, Part 2

This post brought to you by Holly Storck-Post, Youth Services Coordinator for Monroe Public Library. 

Desk Display

We used the front of our desk as display space when we were raising butterflies this summer, and I realized it was a great way to get kids and families looking at a display.

The first day that we had the alphabet up, and a toddler was walking up to the desk with his mother and exclaimed, “Mama, sing my abc’s!”

The READ posters were fun because the kids would look from us, to the poster, and back, and try to figure out what they were seeing!

The emotions idea came from here, and it has had a good response. One kid only wanted to name the “positive” emotions (happy, excited, sleepy) and wouldn’t mention the “bad” once (sad, angry, scared). Luckily, he was joined by a parent who picked up on that and talked about it with him.

More Spaces!

These footprints grew out of a desire to fill and empty spot and having something for the slightly older kids to do while a parent was busy with a younger sibling. We are on our second set of footprints, since even laminated footprints get pretty worn out after being stepped on that many times! I was also surprised to find that they get rearranged quite often. One day I came in to find they had turned a corner!

My staff member got the ideas for both our stairs and bathroom from Hennepin County. Again, I added Spanish to the stairs, and we hear the kids coming up and counting on a daily basis. This is one of the additions that I have gotten the most compliments on from community members.

The library I worked at as a page in library school had a growth chart in front of the circ desk, and it was incredibly popular. Kids measured themselves and their families constantly, and I thought it would be a neat addition to our children’s room. We have a library wide mural on one of our walls, painted by a local artist, and I asked her to do the growth chart.

As I was putting up my five practices tips the other day, I realized the singing is something that we do a TON of in programming and less so in the children’s room. Thus was born our “song of the week” station. I put it up on a day I worked alone, and then asked my staff to pretty please play along and sing if anyone asked them. So far I’ve definitely seen parents reading the sign, and the images match my song cube that I take to daycare storytimes, so some kids might start to recognize that!

Check out Easy Early Literacy Spaces, Part 1 for more ideas!

Easy Early Literacy Spaces, Part 1

This post brought to you by Holly Storck-Post, Youth Services Coordinator at Monroe Public Library.

I started at my current position as Youth Services Coordinator in June, and since then I’ve been adding little early literacy activities and awareness to our children’s section. Some of the things I came up with, a lot of them were suggestions from my amazing staff, and many were inspired by other libraries!

Here is some of what we’re doing. Anything not mine includes a link to the original idea whenever possible!

Early Literacy Tips

This grew out of the idea of posting early literacy tips during storytime. I don’t do our regular in-house storytimes, and I wanted the opportunity to explain why we offer so many different activities. I typed up a TON of tips, some taken straight from ECRR, some adapted from The Early Literacy Kit, and a few more that I specifically wanted to address. I put them in speech bubbles, laminated them, and now I have a backlog that I can pull from every time I change a display or put out a new activity.

Activity Board

The inspiration for this idea originally came from Brooke. I copied her idea, adding in the Spanish language since we have a growing Spanish speaking population and I am working on ways to increase our services to these patrons. At first I just taped it up to the pillar, which quickly failed, so then we added a magnet board in order to have more options.

The next activity at this station was something I came up with for a simple matching game. When I used this game in bilingual storytime, a kid quickly corrected me from “diamond” to “rhombus!”

Play Table

One of my staff who specializes in early literacy saw a post on this blog about a felt table, and suggested that we try it. I covered our table in felt (you need a LOT of tape), and pulled out some of basic felt pieces and wooden props to set out. The kids and families have LOVED this one. One child made us additional props for the animals scene using paper and crayons, and the flowers are getting sorted by color almost daily (on the other days they end up in a big pile on the floor. Those are the days I eat a lot of chocolate).

More ideas for Easy Early Literacy Spaces coming soon!  

Language, ECRR and Storytime

A rich, link heavy post from Molli Kay over at What Happens in Storytime blog will reassure you and inspire you in your storytime work with kids!


Image: 'Oh my God I look Cute!!' http://www.flickr.com/photos/20738022@N00/432194779 Found on flickrcc.net