About a year ago our Early Literacy Curriculum Lead, Lisa Bubert, came to me with a very interesting idea. We had been offering one or two small early literacy workshops for childcare providers, parents, and area librarians each year. We had also created a series of three “Ready, Set, Read” webinars on early literacy. We are registered with the Texas Education Agency and provide CPE credit for attendance at our workshops or completion of our webinars. Childcare providers in Texas are required to earn at least 24 hours of continuing education credit each year. As the educational arm of the City, we had felt for quite some time that our role should include providing an accessible and free source for some of those hours. So, having successfully done the small workshops and the webinars, Lisa wanted to go bigger! She proposed that we present a full day of early literacy workshops at our library.
We hosted our first annual “Grow a Reader: Early Literacy Day” on Saturday, August 13. Even though Lisa moved to Nashville in July, she was absolutely here in spirit! Our new Early Literacy Curriculum Lead, Bonnie Barber, and I facilitated the event.
Marisa Conner, Youth Services Manager from the Baltimore County Public Library System, flew down to be our keynote speaker. She spoke about the power of play and the Rosedale and Woodlawn Storyvilles—the simply extraordinary early literacy active learning centers she created in her library system.
Maggie Fox from the Frisco Public Library, Nina Martin from the Plano Public Library System, and Claudia Wayland from the Allen Public Library discussed a variety of engaging activities and resources that promote STEM-based learning—everything from circulating STEM backpacks and science kits to STEM story times and robotics programs for all ages.
Al Stewart from the Collin County Association for the Education of Young Children led an interactive session on how to intentionally plan activities to enhance young children’s oral language development.
Retired librarians and story time experts Genie Hammel (Plano) and Cindy Boatfield (Frisco) demonstrated story time tips and tricks that promote brain development and school readiness.
Finally, Tammie Williams, founder of Apple Creek – Allen and Apple Creek – Frisco private preschools, presented on Conscious Discipline: a new paradigm for classroom management that focuses on fostering the development of emotional intelligence skills.
Total attendance for the day was 555 childcare providers, area librarians, parents, and other caregivers. Participants that attended all day earned 6 hours of continuing education credit. Survey results were overwhelmingly positive. 88.64% of survey respondents indicated that as a result of attending “Grow a Reader Day”, they felt more confident in their knowledge of early literacy. A great quote from the survey is: “As a librarian, I enjoyed the mix of library-specific sessions and sessions that were more broadly about early childhood development and literacy in other contexts. I am sometimes disappointed by conferences and trainings that don’t have enough research-based workshops on early childhood development and its implications for library service, and I appreciate workshops with tangible take-aways that I can put into use in my job. I think your planners did a great job of creating and event with real practical value for the participants and enough variety that people in different early childhood careers, library workers of varying professional levels, and even the public could find something of value. Thanks!”
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of our amazing presenters for sharing their expertise with our community! A very special thank you to Marisa Conner whose journey from Maryland to Texas was an odyssey of flight delays that included a five-hour car trip in the middle of the night from San Antonio to Frisco with a kindly stranger due to a re-routed flight. We are all thrilled about how our first full day of early literacy workshops went and are already making plans for next August. If you’re interested in presenting, please let me know at jcummings@friscotexas.gov.
Find links to the handouts from Grow a Reader Day at www.friscolibrary.com/earlyliteracyday.
(All photos courtesy of guest blogger)
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Today’s guest blogger is Jennifer Cummings. Jennifer is the Youth Services Manager at the Frisco Public Library in Frisco, Texas.
Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.