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Something Different Every Day / Child Development

April 24, 2008

No Child Left Behind @ your library?

I am back on my early literacy soapbox, thanks to the checklist someone passed to me of how library staff in one library system are being rated on their storytimes. The checklist is entirely based on Every Child Ready to Read standards. It includes things like: "Presenter makes connections between letters in children's names and in alphabet book or book title".

Reading is important. Building reading skills is important. Getting young children ready to read using the six skills of early literacy is important. But the most important thing is story.

Schools have to implement No Child Left Behind styles of teaching reading to get funded. But I think many of us in Youth Services would agree that focusing too much on the mechanics of reading is a huge mistake. Are we falling into that same trap in libraries?

It's the stories that count the most. Story is fundamental iin humankind--it's why we pass them along for hundreds of years. It's why we tell them to our children over and over. Stories help children become loving, connected, ethical human beings by what they tell about how people relate to each other. (Often the "people" are animals in picture books, but it means the same thing.) Stories are also how children can broaden their experience out of their own family into the whole big world out there of the past and the present and the potential future.

I love building early literacy elements into the library space. And any good storytime provider is going to work the six early literacy skills into their story programs naturally, because books are made out of words and words are made out of letters and leading children into talking about the stories and predicting what's going to happen are just the sorts of things you do while reading with children.

But you have to start with good stories. In my Storytime for Big Kids program this week (ages 4-K) these kids, like so many others I have worked with over the years, were amazed and delighted by Keiko Kasza's The Wolf's Chicken Stew. I could have spent a lot of time talking about how the wolf was making 100 of each food to feed the chicken to fatten her up; we could have speculated on whether the foods were nutritious or discussed if one of the children in the room had a name that began with W, same as Wolf....but all of that would have sidetracked the surprise that makes children burst out laughing, when the Chicken introduces "Uncle Wolf" to the 100 chicks he's been inadvertently feeding.

It's the story that counts. It's the story that provides the foundation, and the phonological awareness, letter knowledge, print motivation and so on get swept in with that great belly laugh and the longing to read the story again and again. So please, put "Did the presenter use some great stories" on your storytime checklists. Otherwise, all we are providing is No Child Left Behind @ Your Library.

Posted by susan at 12:58 PM | Comments (5)

September 19, 2007

A happy dance from Scotland

I know it sounds melodramatic, but Brotherhood 2.0 has changed my life. The year-long video project between Printz Award-winning author John Green and his Eco-Geek brother Hank Green is something my two sons and I have been following with huge enjoyment. On one day, Hank may sing a (usually hilarious) song; John last week read the first chapter of his not-yet-published YA novel aloud. Often they just talk about what's happening in their lives, how they feel about the current state of the world (and gauge the "WorldSuck level") and in general celebrate being "nerdfighters".

On September 11th, the subject of where people were came up, and many of the comments began, "I was in second grade..." so although a wide age range is enjoying their video blog, the YA audience makes up a huge part of it, which is a very cool thing.

I say it has changed my life, but that's because Brotherhood 2.0 has changed the lives of my sons in a very real way. They are seeing a pair of brothers a lot like themselves talking back and forth, and seeing the way they carry out their adult relationship. John and Hank are modeling how adult siblings can live across the country from each other and remain very close. Right now, my two sons are across the world from each other, because older brother Iain is having a semester abroad at the University of Edinburgh. And my two boys are attempting a once a week exchange of videos, which so far only the older son with the shiny new equipment has managed to keep up with. Would it ever have crossed their minds without Hank and John? I doubt it!

The end of this week's entry from Iain includes a happy dance at the bottom of Arthur's Seat, which I'm sure he is planning to submit to Brotherhood 2.0 for their happy dances around the world montage. And let me tell you, few things do a mother who happens to be a Youth Services librarian's heart more good than seeing her awesome son do a happy dance in Scotland for a project carried out by an awesome YA author and his equally awesome brother! In some ways, the world is actually getting cooler.

Posted by susan at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2007

Love of Stories vs. Phonemics

A friend recently commented that her son had his first day of Kindergarten and they tested his reading. (Right there, that makes me sad.) His mother asked how he did, and he said that he couldn't really read the words, and that puzzled both of them because he knows quite a few words. Another friend was able to explain that the school was probably using the DIBELS Nonsense Word assessment, one where the children are tested in their fluency in reading words that don't actually mean anything. In other words, they're being tested on how well they can sound things out while completely ignoring meaning.

Yes, let's get rid of those pesky words. They just complicate everything. This is why I am beginning to worry that libraries are beginning to go off-track where our mission is concerned. I think we have a vital role to play in getting "Every Child Ready to Read," but it feels to me like too much of the emphasis in the discussion of storytimes now sounds an awful lot like the same things kids are being taught in school that passes for reading. I see our role as making sure children are exposed to great authors and great art, and to the stories that people have been passing along for generations as well as the amazing new books being created daily. When you do it right, when you pick books that are magical and find fingerplays and songs that match those books, and you include nursery rhymes and poetry, and you invite the children to predict what's happening next in the story...those are all the same skills they will need to learn to read.

They are going to spend way too much of their school years focusing on the mechanics of reading. We can incorporate ABCs and the sounds of letters while not losing sight of the story. Am I all alone on this?

Posted by susan at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2007

Summer Reading: One Month Down, One to Go

Awhile back, I promised to show more of our Summer Reading Game, and this gorgeous Saturday afternoon is about the quietest we've been since June 4th when the game began. You've already seen some pictures of the game being built. This is the first year we have used a wooden frame, and it's given the foamboard games a lot of stability, which with 1500 kids (and counting) using it, it needs.

Little kids game.

Kids get a turn for every 5 books someone reads to them, and they may play any one of 5 activities such as put the ring around Saturn, or digging for moonrocks. The cut paper illustrations were made by our own Lauren Collen.

The circle is a cutout the children look through. One side is a cute space alien; the other side is a rocketship--the little kids put on an astronaut helmet (if they want) and we hold up a mirror so they can see what they look like.

Next week, I'll show the big kids game!

Posted by susan at 3:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2007

Advice for parents

Happy Birthday, Dr. Brazelton! Dr. T. Berry Brazelton celebrates his 89th birthday of what has been a life extraordinarily well-spent. As he repeated today on NPR's Morning Edition, his advice has always been to look to the child--observe your child, figure out what kind of child you have, and go from there. What a wise and loving man. He is one of my heroes, along with the late Fred Rogers.

Listening to Dr. Brazelton made me think a little about what advice I would offer parents today, and as it happens, I have some! We visited our son at Macalester College this past weekend, and he also turned 20 yesterday. It's crazy how fast his time at college is flying by--half over already, and he just started. But what's even crazier is how much of children's lives these days are spent in preparing them for the college application process. Peter Abrahams made a gentle jab at this phenomenon in his funny mystery Down the Rabbit Hole,
in which the 8th grader's father is preoccupied with her algebra grade because he's worried she won't get on the right math track to get into Yale, or was it Princeton, but really...who cares? That's my point. With the thousands of colleges out there, how is it we actually spend the lifetime of our children worrying ourselves and worrying them about where they will spend four incredibly fast-moving years?

It's very hard not to get sucked up into it, even if you don't have one particular college you are hoping your child will attend. You still try to make sure the grades are good and the preschool/grade school/middle school/high school are the best they can be to get them ready for college, and that they have a wide range of talents and experiences, and they volunteer and take leadership roles, and....good grief!

Do we do it for them, or do we do it for us? You probably noticed that I worked in the name of my son's very fine college with its very fine reputation, right? I think it's a lot for us, so we can compete in the parental college olympics. So here's my advice for parents: help nurture your child into being a strong, loving person who has a sense of his/her strengths and what they might be called to do in life, and refuse to worry about college at least until high school. Sure, your child probably won't get into World's Best College that way, but it's just not that important. Really.

Now, how do I work that into the conversation with the parents at the library? Hmmm.

Posted by susan at 4:48 PM | Comments (1)