Every Child Ready to Read: Competency 9

Every Child Ready to Read at http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/ecrr/ecrrhomepage.cfm.

The ECRR site is project run by the Public Library Association and the Association for Library Service to Children. The site contains information about encouraging early literacy that is useful to librarians, parents, and other care-givers. I found this site by searching through other users tags on Del.icio.us.

Summer Reading Program Graphs: Competency 8

Reading by 9 partnered with public libraries in several southern California to help improve children's literacy. These graphs present the some of the results of the summer reading program. A variety of activities were used to encourage children to join the reading program, such as storytimes, excursians to baseball games, skit performances, puppet shows, and carnivals. Children were encouraged to meet reading goals with rewards such as posters, small toys, t-shirts, and Dodger's tickets.

Graph 2 shows that the amount of time spent reading increased during the summer reading program.




Graph 3 shows reading comprehension of participating and non-participating children. Although slightly more non-participating children were reading at grade level, significantly more participating children read above grade level.



Evaluation of the Public Library Summer Reading Program: Books and Beyond... Take Me to Your Reader!. 2001. Evaluation and Training Institute for the Los Angeles County Public Library Foundation, December. http://www.colapublib.org/about/Readingby.pdf.

Database Searches: Competency 6

In order to find information relating to literacy programs for children in libraries, I used the following concepts in all of my searches: literacy, children, libraries.

Search #1: Academic Search Complete, SUCCESSIVE FRACTIONS SEARCH

I began with my search with the broad search set "children OR youth." I then narrowed the search with limiters and by adding the additional sets "librar*" and "literacy OR reading" with the Boolean operator AND.

SEARCH

I restricted the search to full-text articles published since 2005 in peer-reviewed journals.

RESULTS

My search retrieved 46 results, most of which were relevant and useful.

Search #2: Library Lit, CITATION PEARL GROWING SEARCH

I began my search with the same three concept sets which retrieved 3012 results. I used two subject terms pulled from a useful article. Suggested subject terms are also listed along the lefthand side of the results page.

INITIAL SEARCH AND RESULTS

The fourth result, "Indiana libraries embrace early literature," provides the subject terms for my next search.

FINAL SEARCH AND RESULTS

My revised search using the subject headings "children's reading" and "children's library services" gave 124 results (42 full-text results). Nearly all of the results of this search appear relevant to my search.

Search #3: Project Muse, SPECIFIC FACET FIRST SEARCH

I chose "literacy OR reading" as the most specific facet of my search. The option to search within results instead of having to start over made it easier to add additional facets.

INITIAL SEARCH AND RESULTS

My initial search gave me 361 results. Since I wanted to narrow down my search further, I added (children OR youth) AND (library OR libraries OR literacy).

FINAL SEARCH AND RESULTS

Since I wanted to narrow my search further, I added (children OR youth) AND (library OR libraries OR librarian) to my search. I retrieved 22 results, but most of the results were not relevant or useful to my search.

Search #4: Dialog, BUILDING BLOCK SEARCH

I created used my three concepts to build search sets in Dialog. To further limit my search and ensure that I only retrieved recent articles, I also limited my search to articles from 2007.

SEARCH SETS
S3: literacy OR reading
S6: children OR youth
S7: librar?

S8: S3 AND S6 AND S7

S10: S8 /2007
RESULTS

My final search retrieved 76 results, most of which appeared relevant to my query.

LibraryThing Tags: Competency 5

Through a search using "tagmashes" on librarything.com, I found a book written by Catherine Sheldrick Ross called Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals About Reading, Libraries, and Community. This book talks about the role that libraries play in encouraging reading and literacy.

LibraryThing tags:
accountability(1) adult nonfiction(1) assigned reading(1) aug 07(1) books(1) Books and reading(2) borrowed(1) cultural studies(1) Currently reading(1) education(2) graduate school textbook(1) information science(1) information studies(1) librarianship(2) libraries(7) Libraries and community(1) Libraries Unlimited(1) Library Reference(1) library science(1) lis590lrl(1) literacy(5) ls 5643(1) non-fiction(3) read(1) reader's advisory(1) readers(1) reading(14) reading research(3) Reading-social aspects(1) Reading. Literacy. Libraries.(1) research(2) returned(1) school(1) school library media(1) Spring 2008(1) teaching(1) twu(1) Unread(2) Unreviewed(1)

Link:
http://www.librarything.com/work/691449/book/29424483

Library Journal RSS Feed: Competency 4

For my fourth competency, I decided to focus on my chosen library type (public) rather than on the topic of literacy. The RSS feed that I have added to my blog provides links to stories about public services in libraries from Libraryjournal.com.

Canada's Family Literacy Day Podcast: Competency 3

I found this podcast using Google on a website called Just One More Book (http://justonemorebook.com/). It is an interview with Magaret Eaton, President of the ABC Canada Literacy Foundation. In the interview she discusses Canada's Family Literacy Day.

One point that is stressed in the article is the importance of reading to children every day, especially at a pre-school age. Eaton also talks about other ways to encourage literacy.

Link to podcast: http://www.justonemorebook.com/2008/01/19/interview-with-margaret-eaton-about-family-literacy-day/

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Jen Robinson's notes on Jim Trelease's talk http://jkrbooks.typepad.com/blog/2007/01/jim_trelease_ta_1.html

Canada' Family Literacy Day website http://abc-canada.org/fld/

Jen Robinson's Book Page: Competency 2

Using Google Blog I found Jen Robinson's Book Page. Part of what I like about the blog is that Robinson includes links to many other literacy resources in addition to her own postings. The following is an excerpt from an article she originally wrote for PBS Parents Expert Q&A (http://www.pbs.org/parents/experts/).

Jen Robinson's Book Page: Promoting the love of books by children and the continued reading of children's books by adults.
http://jkrbooks.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/childrens-liter.html
"This week I had questions from two (apparently unrelated) parents each looking to help boys who are not just reluctant to read, but are having difficulty with it.... I shared a few of own thoughts on this matter... but I wasn’t satisfied that I had given these parents enough help. So, I turned for assistance to my friends from the Kidlitosphere Yahoo Group (a discussion group for those who read, write, and blog about children’s and young adult literature).... Within 24 hours, I had heard back from about fifteen people, including teachers, parents and authors, with useful, concrete, and creative solutions for helping children learn to enjoy reading."