Mel's Desk

Why does Every Child Ready to Read 2 make such a big deal about background knowledge?

Because what a child understands of the subject they are reading about can make or break their ability to comprehend the passage, instead of just “sounding out” the words.

When I present to adults about early literacy, one of my favorite research bits* to share with them is a 1988 study by Recht & Leslie called “Effect of prior knowledge on good and poor readers’ memory of text.” (D. R. Recht & L. Leslie, in Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 16-20.) In it they found that poor readers who knew a lot about baseball OUTSCORED good readers who did not know a lot about baseball–when they were reading about baseball.

We see this all the time at the library! Think of the kids who aren’t “good readers” but will take home every book in your collection about monster trucks, or puppies, or fairy tales, or Saturn. The more we can share about the world with our preschoolers, the more they will know about a zillion different subjects when they sit down to read in school. And the more they know before they start, the more that what they read will make sense to them. AND the more they can make sense out of what they read, the more motivated they will be to keep reading. Keeping kids reading is important, of course, because that’s how true fluency with reading is built: by reading many, many, many texts for many different purposes.

Daniel Willingham, an author and psychology professor who researches cognitive psychology as it applies to K-16 education, wrote a great post describing this and another study.

Look for opportunities to share nonfiction in your storytimes, tablet sessions, or other preschool programs. When you do, take a minute to share with the grownups the power of background knowledge!

*I wish I could remember how I learned about this study. I went back and looked at the ECRR1 materials, thinking it was on their “further reading” handouts, but I didn’t see it there. Maybe someone told me about it, maybe I stumbled across it in another article, but I can’t remember. Would love to credit whoever brought it to my attention! #librarianfail

Children who go to school knowing the parts of a book and how to turn pages can jump right in and start working on learning how to decode and sound words out. Children who haven’t spent time with books must first use valuable classroom time to lay the groundwork of learning what print is and how books work.

You can play “Simon Says” with books in your storytime. Gather enough board books for every child to have one–they don’t have to be the same title. Hand them out when you’re ready to play. Give them some instructions for playing, for example, “In Simon Says, I tell you to do something, and you do it. But the trick is, you ONLY do what I say IF I say Simon Says first. Let’s try it! Simon Says…put your book on your head! That’s right! I said Simon Says so you do what I say. Let’s try again. Put your book on the floor. Oops! I didn’t say Simon Says so you don’t do what I say. OK, here we go!” Don’t worry about penalties for getting it wrong! Just say, “Oh no!” and go on to the next command.

With younger kids, Simon Says can be pretty tricky. Skip it if you think it will be more frustrating than fun. Instead, play “Follow the Leader,” and ask them to do what you do. Call out what you’re doing as you do it. Use some ideas just for fun and some that prompt the kids to manipulate the books.

Updated 6/24 afternoon: So the SAME MORNING I have this post scheduled, the amazing Cate sends a link to this article out on Twitter: Simon Says: Why Is This Game So Hard for Young Kids? Simon Says really IS tricky, even for big kids, so please trust your instincts for what will work with your group! My main goal here is to find a fun way to get books into kids’ hands during storytime, and not just in our own. Another tactic is to let babies play with books. What other ways could we do this?

Here are some sample commands:

Put the book on your head
Sit on the book
Give the book to your grownup
Hold the book in both hands
Open the cover
Show me the back cover
Hold the book right-side-up
Turn to the very last page

With older children, you could do things like:

Open the book and point to a word
Open the book and point to an illustration
Point to the title

After you’ve played a few rounds, say something like this to the adults: “Grownups, every time you read to your child or let them look through books by themselves, they are learning all about how books work. This helps them become a good reader because if they already know how to use a book before they go to school, they can skip all that and focus on learning how to read. Reading with your child helps them get ready to read.”

Another round of blogs newly added to the Storytime Resources page and Google Custom Search!

Lovin’ the Library
–Hannah has just a few posts up so far but she’s showing great interest in trying out different ideas for storytime, including puppets, flannels, and gross-motor activities!

Fun with Friends at Storytime
–Since joining the Flannel Friday crew last year Kathryn has been super generous at sharing a lot of flannel ideas and rhyme adaptations. I love that she recommends a lot of books along the way for her themes!

A Librarian Less Ordinary
–Fun posts from a school librarian! I think what I love most is is how often Mrs Todd links back to the bloggers and posts that inspire her–a great way to find even more blogs to follow!

What Is Bridget Reading?
–Read Bridget for her zillions of book reviews, of course, but she also has been a Flannel Friday contributor and host since our first year, so there’s lots of flannelboard ideas too! (WHY didn’t I link her a long time ago? smh)

Madly, Madam Librarian
–A new blog by a new early literacy specialist! Check out Kelly’s posts for all kinds of book reviews, baby storytime writeups, and her first Flannel Friday!

So I’ve been inching towards a massive update of the Storytime Resources page for at LEAST a year now, and those of you who have sent in your blogs and pages to be added have been super patient waiting for me to get on the ball. I have realized that there’s no way I can do this all at once, so over the next couple of months I will work on it a little at a time. I’ll post semi-regularly with the new sites I’m adding both to the page and to the Custom Google Search.

Here’s the first batch!

Cockburn Libraries: YPS Amazing Shares
–from Australia! Check out recent posts with bread painting, National Simultaneous Storytime (I *wish* we had this in the US!), and their baby storytime “Pram Jam” writeups!

Miss Meg’s Storytime
–Miss Meg just celebrated one year of her great blog! Visit her for her Flannel Friday contributions and storytime plans, a printable version of her planning template, and how it felt to tackle baby storytime for the first time.

The Lion is a Bookworm
–Carrie’s blog is a wonderful mix of storytime plans, youth services musings, bulletin board ideas, and program outlines…all from her very first year of her first library job!

Library Village
–The three smart ladies at the Library Village have packed 100 posts into their first year of blogging! LOTS of storytime plans for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, LOTS of Flannel Friday ideas, plus great posts such as their recent round up of top tips for successful storytimes.

Literary Commentary
–Miss Kim has been blogging for a couple of years now and has a really nice collection of storytime plans, book reviews, program writeups, and craft ideas. Plus she ninjas for Storytime Underground, hooray!

Story Time with Songs and Rhymes
–Dawn is the author of a series of great picture books that introduce sign language vocabulary to kids and families. Her whole blog is a treat, with lots of early literacy tips related to signing, but she also has a series of posts specifically with storytime plans that incorporate signing, if you want to start there.

Laughter and Literacy
–Just a few posts here so far (because she’s also writing her library’s sweet early literacy blog at Laugh Play Read), but a good variety of all-ages ideas to start!

I have been in love with Paola Opal’s books for a few years now. They are perfect first stories for very young toddlers: they are very short and they feature child protagonists, of course, but unlike many board books, they are also true narratives, with a real story arc and a problem that must be solved. AND the problem is solved BY the child character. How awesome is that?

ANYWAY. I used Zingy in a Bird storytime and made this flannel to go along with. After we read the book, I put the flowers on the board one by one, chatting a little: “Oh, here’s a daisy, and this one looks like a star, and this one has four red petals.” I stacked one flower so Zingy was peeking out behind it and put them both on the board at the same time…you could see a wing, or a beak sticking out past the flower. Then when all the flowers were up, I said, “Where’s Zingy?”

The older toddlers in my birth-24 months baby storytime can usually see where Zingy is, or if not, I often have a big brother or sister who is THRILLED to be able to spot Zingy for the group.

We do this a few times, talking all the while. “The red flower is next to the blue one, and the blue one is next to the yellow one…” And “I can tell Zingy is behind the purple flower because his wing is showing, look!”

The idea with the babies is not so much to have them “get the right answer” as it is to play “peekaboo” and model a lot of ongoing chatter for the adults. But with older kids, you could size the pieces so that Zingy could be completely hidden behind a flower, and then give clues: “Zingy is hiding behind a flower that’s the same color as a stop sign.”

I’m not including a pattern because the pictures are so bold and simple that I just used the illustrations as my pattern book. I started with a black shape for the background and built the images on top of it.

I’m looking forward to doing more sets for more of Opal’s books!

Happy Flannel Friday! The Roundup is at Mollie’s place this week. For more about Flannel Friday, you can always check out the website or our Pinterest.

With just one week under my belt at my new job, I am barely starting to put all the pieces together and figure out all the things I am going to need to learn and to do in the next year. Looming especially large in my thoughts is the awareness that this is my first supervisory position, and I have a lot to learn about what good supervision looks like and feels like from this end of the equation.

My dad, who spent 40 years in sales, management, and training, says, “Set clear expectations, train well, and don’t hover.”

My 16-year-old daughter says, “Don’t give pep talks.” [When I asked why, she said she’d rather be DOING her job or task than be “getting motivated” to do it.]

What do you have to share? What’s something your best bosses have in common? What’s your strongest point as a supervisor? What could you do better with better supervision? What do you wish you knew before your first supervisory job?

I’m grateful for your advice and wisdom!

Comfy right here thank you

I am super happy to announce that I have accepted a new job at my library!

Not only is it new to me, it’s a newly-created position in our system, so there is going to be a LOT of learning going on.

In a few weeks I will begin as a supervisor to a team (ALSO newly-created) of staff members who will serve as early literacy specialists for the district. These folks will be our storytime providers, early learning experts, picture book connoisseurs, and community connections for the young families our library serves.

Our library is undergoing a comprehensive reorganization as we move from a more generalist staff model to one that allows for tighter focus on several service priorities, one of which is early literacy. My first task will be to work with my boss to select our early literacy team from the in-house staff who apply; then we will be diving in to creating storytime assignments and floor schedules and continuing education and early literacy training and figuring out how to best provide for and support these staff in their new roles, as they in turn support the branch staff, and most importantly, the patrons.

I’m a little nervous at taking on my first supervising role! But I am very excited by the opportunities ahead for really drilling down and creating fresh, robust, meaningful, and personalized storytime and early literacy training for a smaller, specialized team.

Thanks to you all for all the conversations we’ve had here over the years. Thinking deeply about storytime for Mel’s Desk posts is one of the things that made me feel ready for this next challenge.

Stay tuned…you better believe I am going to have SO MUCH MORE to talk about!

___________________________________

photo credit: acrylic painting by a Depper daughter, used with permission