{"id":22018,"date":"2019-11-21T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T05:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=22018"},"modified":"2019-11-07T22:00:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-08T03:00:03","slug":"family-engagement-during-storytime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2019\/11\/family-engagement-during-storytime\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Engagement During Storytime: Shifting from Performer to Early Literacy Facilitator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Ask ALSC, where the Managing Youth Services Committee asks leaders in children\u2019s libraries to share their response to an issue or situation.\u00a0 We hope to showcase a range of responses to topics that may affect ALSC members. If you\u2019d like to respond to today\u2019s topics, or suggest a topic for the future, please leave a comment.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The staff conducting story time at the public library had a problem.\u00a0 No matter how engaging story times, no matter how much effort expended, no matter how many puppets were used, families at the back of the story time room were looking at their cell phones, talking to other adults, or reading books.\u00a0 Generally, adults were ignoring the storyteller.\u00a0 While in and of themselves those behaviors were not abhorrent, great effort was being expended and the storyteller expected the attention of everyone in the room.\u00a0 To help alleviate the frustration of being ignored, our staff began to discuss family engagement, an essential predictor of a child’s preparation for school (Clark, 2007<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Our story time staff embraced the role of the library in offering early literacy experiences to children in our community.\u00a0 We designed developmentally appropriate programming<\/a>, using engaging professional materials.\u00a0 We followed blog posts<\/a> of leaders in the field and read professional literature.\u00a0 We received national certification<\/a> indicating our library understood how to engage young children and used the knowledge in our programming efforts.\u00a0 Although we saw evidence of children participating in activities recognized to build early literacy, adult attendees remained passive once their children were old enough to interact with our staff.\u00a0 Yet, for maximum impact the early literacy strategies would have to be repeated during times the children were not at the library.\u00a0<\/em> Change was clearly needed.<\/p>\n

We began to reflect on our story times, easily identifying the activities\u00a0most effective at engaging young children.\u00a0 However, we struggled to identify ways to engage families.\u00a0 It was soon clear; we had few or no strategies.\u00a0 Further, we were unable to clearly articulate the behaviors that would indicate families were engaged.<\/p>\n

We used\u00a0IDEABOOK: Libraries for Families<\/a> to identify desired positive outcomes for children, families, and the library.\u00a0 We began to plan ways families could interact with their children during the course of story time.\u00a0 This planned time allowed adults to practice the early literacy building skills we ourselves were employing as story teller.<\/p>\n

We began to use a proactive approach to planning for family engagement and the results became clear.\u00a0 Families engaged with their children using strategies we knew to be effective at building early literacy.<\/p>\n

It also became clear that interactions designed to encourage families to practice<\/span> these strategies
\n<\/em><\/strong> shifted the role of the story teller from performer to early literacy facilitator.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Using the lense of the\u00a05Rs Framework<\/a> from ALA, the process to engage families in story time programming was then expanded.\u00a0Identifying ways families can learn the plethora of skills professional librarians use to engage children was our first key step.\u00a0 Allowing adults time to practice building skills during story time was absolutely necessary and increased efficacy of the strategies.<\/p>\n

Embracing the participation of family members during planned programming took a cognitive shift over time, yet was highly effective.\u00a0 The results were consistent.\u00a0 The engagement of families strengthened the impact of library services within the community, allowing for identifiable qualitative outcomes for children, families, and the library.<\/p>\n

\n

Today\u2019s blog post was written by Tammie Benham, Youth Services Consultant at Southeast Kansas Library System in Iola, Kansas, on behalf of the ALSC Managing Children\u2019s Services Committee. She can be reached at tbenham@sekls.org.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

This blog relates to ALSC Core Competencies of III. Programming Skills (4) and\u00a0VII.\u00a0Professionalism and Professional Development (2). <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Ask ALSC, where the Managing Youth Services Committee asks leaders in children\u2019s libraries to share their response to an issue or situation.\u00a0 We hope to showcase a range of responses to topics that may affect ALSC members. If you\u2019d like to respond to today\u2019s topics, or suggest a topic for the future, please leave a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[692,1604,96,1613,1607,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-managing-childrens-services-committee","category-competencies-for-librarians-serving-children-in-public-libraries","category-early-literacy","category-professionalism-and-professional-development","category-programming-skills","category-storytime-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}