Recent results of Multnomah County Library’s Listos para el kinder (Ready for Kindergarten) showed participant children tripled their school readiness skills while their families increased their library usage and involvement in their children’s learning. Education Northwest, a third-party evaluation firm, worked with library staff members to develop, implement and conduct a child activity and pre- and post-program parent survey. The child activity measured the extent to which children participating in Listos develop kindergarten readiness skills in three areas: approaches to learning, social and emotional development, and language and literacy. The parent surveys assessed the extent to which parents use the learned tools to support their children’s academic growth. The largest gains were made by children who did not previously participate in an early childhood program and whose parents did not complete high school. These children grew from an average baseline score of 10.6 to a follow up score of 33….
Month: December 2017
First time at 2018 ALA Midwinter? Join Us for a Welcome Dinner
For new (and old) ALSC members, conferences can seem overwhelming. The ALSC membership committee wants to meet you and welcome you to ALSC and to Denver! What: ALSC “Dutch” (pay your own) Dinner When: Friday February 9th at 6:30 pm Where: Euclid Hall, 1317 14th Street Who: New ALSC members or first-time Midwinter attendees! Why: To learn more about ALSC, eat delicious food, make new friends and learn how to conquer the weekend! How: Please RSVP at this link: https://goo.gl/forms/X37T927Ke5xe8nn22 or email alscmembership@gmail.com There’s More!: After dinner, a group will head to the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) event featuring illustrator Jillian Tamaki. Anyone interested is invited to join.
ALSC Community Forum: Inclusive Spaces and Services for Children of All Abilities
ALSC Community Forum January 10, 2018 @ 3PM (Central) Topic: Inclusive Spaces and Services for Children of All Abilities Jason Driver, Renee Grassi, Eva Thaler-Sroussi, and ALSC President Nina Lindsay will be hosting an ALSC Community Forum live chat on the topic of Inclusive Spaces and Services for Children of All Abilities. This forum will include a live text discussion with the opportunity to ask questions to our presenters. In the past 5 years alone, the topic of inclusion, accessibility, and youth librarianship has moved forward in positive and innovative ways. This discussion will focus on tangible practices for inclusion of children of all abilities in library spaces and services. What can we do to make our youth departments, our branches, or our libraries more welcoming to children and their families? What have we learned from our successes and our failures in programs and services?…
Workplace Dress Codes – Does Your Library Have One?
The next two weeks at work are a couple of my favorites. You would probably assume the reason for this is because of the holidays: time off, free treats to be found everywhere, and most everyone is in a good mood. In reality, they rank up there because my library is running a Jeans for Charity event. Two or three times a year, our staff is allowed to wear jeans in exchange for a $5 minimum donation to charity. A different charity is selected each time. Past beneficiaries include animal shelters, Family Alliance (a health service), and a battered women’s shelter. Why, Alexa, (you ask) are you so excited to wear jeans? Because my library has a dress code. A dress code that prohibits blue jeans, shorts, sneakers, t-shirts with writing (other than our SRP shirts), and backless shoes. It is probably best escribed as business-professional. I do enjoy dressing…
Teaching Children Banned Words
Enlightening & Teaching 2017 was a whirlwind year, with many, many unprecedented changes, challenges and fear. To help our youngest patrons, it is critically important that we aid in their enlightenment, making them more socially aware, teaching them new concepts, and making them more culturally competent. For 2018, I encourage you to explore these terms through your youth programming. This will aid not only the children, but their parents as well. So, let’s go! Following each term will be suggestions for aiding you deliver these important concepts: Diversity My wife – Marianne Dolce, a highly successful school media specialist – showed me how to take a picture book or a story and build a theme from it – to reverse the storytime building process, and thereby integrate diverse materials into storytime – Every. Single Week. Read up on ALA’s “Importance of Diversity” Entitlement These quick “fables” help teach children all…
ALSC Member of the Month – Amanda Foulk
Each month, we work to profile an ALSC member, and learn a little about their professional life as well as a bit about their not-so-serious side. Using just a few questions, we try to keep the profiles fun while highlighting the variety of members in our organization. So, without further ado, welcome to our ALSC profile, ten questions with ALSC member, Amanda Foulk. 1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it? I have the good fortune to be the K-12 Specialist for Sacramento Public Library. The position was created for our system 3 years ago, and I have held it since then. 2. Why did you join ALSC? Do you belong to any other ALA divisions or roundtables? ALSC is doing incredible work, and is setting an example within ALA for supporting our communities in interesting times. I have been a book award fangirl for…
FAN-ing the Flames: Quick Tips on How to Create Fandom Programs at Your Library
Fangirls and Fanboys: If you’ve been longing to do a fandom-based program at your library but don’t quite know where to begin, here’s a helpful guide to get you started.
Audiobooks for Tweens
Growing up, reading was difficult for me. My parents bought me Hooked on Phonics cassette tapes for me to pour over and attempt to learn the sounds of each letter. I would have so much anxiety over learning to read that when they got out those Hooked on Phonics cassette tapes I would get physically sick. I felt like I was never going to learn to read, and my parents didn’t understand why everything they did not work. It was that year that I was finally tested and diagnosed with dyslexia. With that diagnosis in hand, we finally had the answers. My teachers helped me by getting me audiobooks of the books my class read. While my classmates silently read their books, I went out into the hallway, placed huge headphones over my ears, and I listened to the book instead of reading it. I hated this time. I felt…