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How To Use This Book

  • Page ID
    123844
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    You work at a public library and regularly present a storytime program. You strive to meet the needs and expectations of children, caregivers, coworkers, administrators, and other community stakeholders. You want your storytime program to be both fun and impactful. Many of your choices are working well, but you wonder if there are any changes you could make that might enhance the storytime experience - for children, for their caregivers, for your professional development, for your library’s mission and values.

    But with so many choices to make, where can you start?

    You’ve come to the right resource! This guide contains strategies that will help you enhance your storytimes based on the following:

    • The significance of early literacy and school readiness skills for children’s lifelong learning
    • Empirical research from the fields of early childhood education, child psychology, and library science
    • Our original study of 68 storytime sessions presented at 35 libraries across three states
    • Interview responses from 34 storytime librarians like you
    • Survey responses from 346 caregivers whose children attend storytimes
    • Survey responses from 698 public library directors

    Think about an element of storytime you’d like to enhance, read through the Table of Contents below, and choose a path to begin your journey toward even better storytimes.

    Each path contains four sections:

    1. What We Looked At describes original research conducted by our Storytimes for School Readiness and Community Needs project team.
    2. Why It Matters explains the importance of the path’s topic based on research articles from the fields of early childhood education, child psychology, and library science.
    3. What We Learned reports relevant findings from our original research.
    4. What You Can Do provides detailed strategies you can use while planning and delivering storytimes to increase your program’s ability to help children build school readiness skills and to empower caregivers as their child’s first teacher.

    Important Note!

    Virtual Variations: The research-based strategies we suggest are readily applicable or adaptable to delivering storytimes virtually, whether you’ll be using prerecorded or live videos. Look for these Virtual Variations boxes throughout for tips on how to make these adaptations.

    Table of Contents

    If you would like to…

    Increase learning opportunities...
    Enhance positive interactions with children…
    Create a supportive storytime environment…
    Organize routines for success…
    Manage behavior problems….
    Build children’s vocabulary...

    ...journey to Path 1: Strategies for Effective Librarian-Child Interactions

    If you would like to…

    Champion Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion…
    Select high-interest books…
    More easily connect books to learning concepts...
    Find recommendations for diverse books...
    Interest children in informational texts...

    ...journey to Path 2: Considerations for Selecting Books

    If you would like to…

    Multiply the benefits of singing songs...
    Add active learning strategies…
    Provide socializing opportunities…
    Get the most out of media…

    ... journey to Path 3: Songs and Digital Technology

    If you would like to…

    Address caregivers’ priorities and needs…
    Empower caregivers as first teachers…
    Propagate the power of play...
    Increase socializing opportunities...

    ... journey to Path 4: Caregiver Goals for Storytime

    If you would like to…

    Promote storytimes to diverse families…
    Reach more community members…
    Increase inclusion...
    Serve historically underserved families...

    ... journey to Path 5: Strategies to Promote & Deliver Storytimes to Diverse Groups

    Acknowledgments

    This work was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [Federal Award Identification Number: LG-96-17-0199-17].

    We express sincere gratitude to Janet Ingraham Dwyer, State Library of Ohio; Krista King-Oaks, Boone County (KY) Public Library; Amy Olson, Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives; and Suzanne Walker and Beth Yates, Indiana State Library for support of this project.

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