Librarian in the Learning Community
Course
Parents and Caregivers [3:07]
- Learn ways to collaborate with parents and caregivers to develop and reinforce student literacy skills.
- Learn to identifying tasks that parents can do through volunteering, library events, or even donations.
- Learn how to help parents and caregivers become a significant part of the library community, furthering literacy and the library.
Parents and caregivers are the support outside of school hours for developing and reinforcing student literacy skills. It is a natural collaboration, then, that the librarian work with parents to educate them on new approaches and activities to practice these skills. If your school has a newsletter that goes home to parents and caregivers, consider starting a column to spotlight ways to support their child's reading habits, both during the school year and over breaks. Also in the newsletter, include recommendations to support struggling and avid readers. Collaborate with other staff to host evening events for families, such as literacy nights. For example, the staff at Long Branch Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, hosted a successful evening event for second-language parents. They brought their children to learn about formal reading instruction using Mother Goose nursery rhymes. On your library's website, consider creating a page for parent and caregiver resources, with links to articles, book lists, and videos with similar content for those who cannot attend school events.
A key opportunity to engage parents and caregivers as stakeholders in the library is to have them be involved in frequent library routines. Identify tasks that parents can do for you, such as shelving books, creating bulletin boards, and covering or repairing books. At the elementary level, parents and caregivers can read books aloud to small groups or whole classes of students. Consider also those tasks that working parents can do for you but in their own home, such as preparing materials for stations or activities. Parents can support the library with donations of materials for lessons, reading incentives, or supplies for your makerspace. Finally, create a Library Advisory Committee that includes parents and caregivers, staff, and students to plan activities and support your vision for the library.
Families in your school's community can benefit from relationships established with the school library. As a librarian, connect with parent and caregivers at school-sponsored events to learn more about their children. Consider joining the parent teacher association at your school to connect with families. Notice informal learning or current events that relate to parenting, such as addiction to video games and awareness of social media dangers, and conduct workshops on these topics during PTA meetings or in the evening. Finally, for more suggestions for ways your library can support families in your community, take a look at the activities portion of this lesson.
Whether you are hosting a literacy night for families, sharing information through a school newsletter, having parents and caregivers contribute to the library space, or working to provide experiences for the entire family, as a school librarian, you can help parents and caregivers be a significant part of the library community.
Parents have much to offer library programs, and in turn, we have much to offer parents. Use the SLC articles in the Resources section to reflect on how much you currently involve parents in your library and develop new strategies to improve your practice.
How does your school view parents as stakeholders in their children's education? To what extent do you involve parents in your library? After consulting the SLC articles in the Resources above, decide on two or three new ways to include parents as part of your library program. Use the Including Parents in Your Library Program worksheet on page 7 of the handout (found in the Resources above) to list your strategies to improve your practice.
MLA Citation
Grover, Rachel. "Librarian in the Learning Community: Including Parents in Your Library Program." School Library Connection, October 2020, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2254736?learningModuleId=2254582&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2254752
Additional Resources
MLA Citation
Grover, Rachel. "Librarian in the Learning Community. Parents and Caregivers [3:07]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, October 2020, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2254736?learningModuleId=2254582&topicCenterId=2247902.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2254736?learningModuleId=2254582&topicCenterId=2247902
Entry ID: 2254736