Closing the Literacy Gap

PreK-12 school librarians can be leaders in working collaboratively to close the early childhood literacy gap. When children arrive for their first day at preschool or in elementary classrooms and school libraries, educators can identify the children who are ready to read. They race to the shelves to pick out books. They know how to hold books and turn pages. Family literacy, however, starts long before that first day of schooling. Brain research shows that the first three to five years of life are most critical for cognitive development (Center on the Developing Child 2007).

Early literacy is a hot topic in education. The International Literacy Association (ILA) conducts an annual “What’s Hot in Literacy Survey.” ILA reported that 80% of survey respondents at the community level and 78% of the respondents at the country level felt early literacy is very or extremely important (ILA 2017). Parents, family, and community members who talk, sing, play, and read to infants and young children prepare them for success in school and in life. In the following vignettes, elementary and secondary librarians share how they are collaborating to help ensure that all children have a strong start in literacy learning.

Click to Enlarge +Closing the Literacy Gap

Pre-Kindergarten (preK) and Elementary Vignettes

Castleberry Independent School District, Fort Worth, Texas

Teacher-librarian Kelly Shelton is passionate about ensuring that students enjoy coming to the library at Castleberry Elementary. Motivating students to read is essential, not only to the library program but for overall student success. Learning and reading begin at the preK level on the Castleberry campus. PreK students come to the library for a weekly 45-minute lesson that includes book checkout. Each week, preschool teachers email Kelly to let her know what they are teaching for the upcoming week. Kelly pulls books on the week’s topics and delivers them to the classroom.

During the scheduled lesson, the preK teachers remain in the library and are actively involved with students. Kelly starts by reading a book to support the curriculum topic. She finds songs that support the week’s theme. When the children finish checking out a library book, students engage in a follow-up activity. For example, when the theme was fairytales, students used the Doodle Buddy app on the iPad to illustrate what they learned. When the theme was transportation, students sorted helicopters, trains, boats, and cars into categories. For Dr. Seuss week, since students struggled with scissors, the following week the activity was a practice cutting activity.

Kelly says teaching preK students is one of the highlights of her week. Seeing students excited for reading and coming to the library is wonderful. PreK teacher Mrs. Carter-Ratliff had this to report about her students’ weekly library time. “PreK library time has been so beneficial. Mrs. Shelton has been diligent to coordinate the weekly lessons with our Frog Street Curriculum themes. The stories and hands-on activities have been a great reinforcement to the content that pre-K students are responsible for learning. In addition, the children have been very engaged each week dancing to the thematic songs she finds for us!”

Northside Independent School District (ISD), San Antonio, Texas

To help foster a love for literature, Northside ISD librarians from Behlau, Lieck, and Michael Elementary Schools collaborate to provide a story time program for the pre-elementary-age students in the communities surrounding their campuses. School librarians Genevieve Orozco, Tammy Reyna, and Elida Madrigal meet in the summer, outside of the instructional calendar, to determine story time themes and topics for the upcoming school year. Throughout the year, the librarians work to gather related books and supplies for crafts.

Story times are held once a month during the school year. Children from infancy to 5 years of age are invited to attend with their parents. Each hour-long program consists of an introductory song, at least two books (fiction or nonfiction), a craft, and a snack. Each story time focuses on a specific letter or group of letters to assist the children with proper sound formation and proficiency in letter recognition.

After completing the craft and enjoying the snack, the families are invited to check out books from the school library. Story time families have active library accounts which they use enthusiastically on a regular basis. Through the story time program, the librarians have developed parent-librarian relationships and relationships among parents. To top it off, parents who have participated in the story times have started an independent preschool program in the community for those children who have not yet qualified for pre-kindergarten. Success!

Mesquite Independent School District, Dallas County, Texas

Mesquite ISD serves more than 40,000 students on 47 campuses; 75% of these students come from poverty households as defined by the government. Research shows that students from poverty enter school almost two years behind peers who are not from poverty. The district began working on an early literacy initiative called “Read Play Talk” in January 2016. This research-based, community-supported initiative tackles the challenge with educator-designed strategies that address the community’s literacy needs.

One such strategy was the brainchild of Allison Glasgow, librarian at Galloway Elementary School. She originated the idea of a “baby book club” that has since spread to campuses all across the district. Schedules vary, but most baby book clubs meet once a week, usually in the 30-45 minutes before afternoon dismissal. These sessions are led by librarians and campus literacy specialists and offer literacy activities for preschool age children and their parents. Read alouds, games, puzzles, songs, conversation, and pre-writing are typical activities. Attendance also varies, but most clubs see from two to twelve children at each session. This video shows several Mesquite ISD baby book clubs in action: https://youtu.be/5Sd_2TgbCII

Secondary Vignettes

Phoenix Union High School District, Phoenix, Arizona

Jean Kilker is the librarian at Maryvale High School. The library serves more than 3,000 students; almost 100% of the students are on free and reduced lunch. The Family and Consumer Science Department (FACS) offers courses in culinary arts, fashion, and child development. In the 2016-2017 school year, new teacher Liz Gonzalez taught five child development classes each day. She discovered there were no children’s books in the classroom for the preschool that is held on site during second semester.

The Maryvale Library has a good collection of children’s books, but the FACS classes needed more. Liz searched for grants and book donations and Jean brought books to the classroom from the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library. Liz also invited Jean to teach the high school students about early childhood literacy and how to tell stories and read to young children.

In the child development classroom, Jean led the students in learning about readiness, age-appropriate books, sequencing reading instruction, storytelling, reading aloud and hands-on activities. During the discussion of readiness, Jean shared the public library’s Every Child Ready to Read® program and the state website for early childhood education, which contains parent information related to literacy.

In the next lesson, Jean taught students how to choose appropriate books. She brought children’s books written at various levels into the classroom. Groups used graphic organizers to decide appropriate age ranges for their set of books considering, at a minimum: size, topic, culture, illustrations, cover art, and vocabulary. From board books to chapter books, students compared books for different ages.

The third lesson focused on enriching the reading experience. Students discovered what made an exciting reading session and how teachers use pre-, during, and post-reading strategies. The high school students cut out paper squares to help story listeners hold up the correct color when that color was mentioned in the book. Students made paper bag puppets and practiced using different voices. They discussed where to get items to fill a story bag to pull out props as they read about that item in the story.

When Jean visited with the closest public library branch for more information on their early literacy programs, the children’s librarian was very helpful and volunteered to work with the high school students. They plan this community collaboration approach for 2017-2018.

Tucson Unified School District, Tucson, Arizona

Christy Friske-Daniels is the school librarian at Tucson High Magnet School (THMS). Mimi Zoll teaches Spanish at THMS; she involves her students in a year-long reading log assignment. Together, they have built the library’s Spanish-English book collection, which includes picture books. In 2016, Christy and Mimi earned a grant from the Tucson Educational Enrichment Foundation to purchase seventy-five additional hardcover bilingual and Spanish-only books for the library. The Spanish-language students’ reading log assignment combined with the new resources increased students’ interest and engagement in reading aloud to the young children in their lives.

These are comments from the students’ reading logs:

• “My four-year old brother really enjoyed the pictures and he was really interested in how to say the names of animals in Spanish.”
• “Our little neighbor (aged 5) LOVED the princess theme. She’s starting to get the hang of Spanish words going together with the pictures.”
• “Jay chose this book because he loves dinosaurs. He made me read it and re-read it! He really loved this session because he loves when I read to him and talk about dinosaurs.”
• “He loved to point out the cookie in the book so I taught him galleta. He enjoyed the book and made me continue to read it even after his nap.”

In addition, Christy and Mimi collaborated on a project with second-year, Spanish-language students. With the guidance of these two educators and with the bilingual picture books they co-selected, the students wrote (and illustrated) storybooks for “little readers.” One student wrote:

"This has been my favorite homework assignment because I’ve gotten to spend time with my niece as well as teach her and myself. Seeing how well she developed comprehension helped me write my book for her; I wasn’t afraid to make it challenging. I will definitely continue to read to her because of the benefits we both receive from this experience.”

As Christy notes, “While having the input of a school librarian can really work to deeply engage students, a fully collaborative project works both ways. Not having a complete grasp of the Spanish language and Ms. Zoll’s expectations of her students, I absolutely needed her expertise in ordering books for the project. Overall, working side by side and deferring to her judgment based on years of experience in the selection process, was not only smart, but invigorating for us and our students!”

School librarians can help close gaps in access to early childhood and family literacy by developing partnerships with preschool teachers, K-12 classroom teachers, families, childcare centers, and non-profit agencies. Reach out in your community. Find out about opportunities for supporting early childhood education through the Every Student Succeeds Act’s Preschool Development Grants. Investigate the Innovative Approaches to Literacy grants. Be part of the movement to help every child succeed.

Works Cited

Harvard Center on the Developing Child. The Science of Early Childhood Development (InBrief). 2007. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/.

International Literacy Association. “What’s Hot in Literacy Report,” 2017. https://literacyworldwide.org/get-resources/whats-hot-survey.

Additional Resources

Ideabook: Libraries for Families. Harvard Family Research Project and Public Library Association. http://engagefamilies.org/programs/program-resources/ideabook-libraries-for-families.

Every Child Ready to Read. http://www.everychildreadytoread.org.

Reach Out and Read®. http://reachoutandread.org.

U.S. Department of Education. Innovative Approaches to Literacy. https://www2.ed.gov/programs/innovapproaches-literacy/index.html.

U.S. Department of Education. Preschool Development Grants. https://www2.ed.gov/programs/preschooldevelopmentgrants/index.html.

Zero to Three. https://www.zerotothree.org.