Introduction

           I created this blog as a means of gaining greater depth from the resources found in my early literacy course. Over the next few months I will be posting information here regarding early literacy, child development, libraries, and children’s programming. From this course I hope to gain a more thorough understanding of early literacy and its role in the library setting.

            In looking over the readings of the first week I was inspired by The Institute of Museum and Library Services (2013) report on how museums and libraries play such a vital role in the learning of young children. 22% of children in the United States are living in poverty and face the possibility of falling behind in school due to lack of resources (Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2013, p.11). Libraries have the opportunity to combat this lack of resources by offering children and parents a place to learn, play, and interact together. Through the creation of family places, storytimes, or other early childhood programming libraries can be seen as a resource for new parents to help prepare their child to learn. Librarians then can be seen as “facilitators of learning, working with families and caregivers and transforming visits … into ;teachable moments’ that connect children’s experience to deeper learning and knowledge,” (Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2013, p.13).

            As this is my first blog post I wanted to share a little about myself and how I am working to be a resource for young children in my community. I first became interested in early literacy and working with children when I began working for FIRST5 after I graduated college. This organization’s focus is to ensure that all children 0 to 5 are happy, healthy, and ready to learn by kindergarten. Throughout this time I worked to promote early literacy practices to parents and monitored our free book program for the county.

            My current position is a library assistant for Monterey County. I work in our Early Literacy Mobile Outreach department and travel on the bookmobile to deliver storytimes to preschool classes throughout the county. Recently we have incorporated a science element to our storytimes.  Our new program, STREAM (science, technology, reading, engineering, agriculture, and mathematics), has children participating in a storytime with a science theme followed by a short experiment. These experiments include racing cars on ramps to discuss gravity and motion or building houses out of spaghetti and marshmallows to learn concepts of engineering. The children really enjoy the new program and it is so exciting to see as they begin to work with these new concepts in their minds and build a new science related vocabulary. I truly love to watch these kids every day. Below are pictures of the children and myself during our storytime visits.

References

Institute of Museum and Library Services. (2013). Growing young minds: How museums and libraries create lifelong learners. Retrieved from https://sjsu.instructure.com/courses/1212433/files/44590511/download