Newsletter Topics 

New but Not

Common Core Corner  

Florida Memory Feature    

Innovate and Inspire

Out of the Box 

Quick Links

Florida Electronic Library 

Florida Memory Project 

 Florida Library Webinars 

Summer Reads 

By signing up for a CSLP website account, youth services staff have access to more resources not included in the CSLP manuals.  

Find a variety of  training opportunities at Florida Library Webinars.  

Pam Maneeratana shows off her carved pumpkins - Tallahassee (from the Florida Memory collection)

 

Jana Fine, Youth Services Consultant
jana.fine@dos.myflorida.com

Resources for the Florida History Fair

Do you have students and teachers in your library researching topics for the Florida History Fair?  

Resources for the 2012-13 Florida History Fair links to primary and secondary source documents available online from the State Library and Archives of Florida. Primary resources from other institutions and key secondary resources are also identified in a newly expanded section. 

Students involved in the History Fair become passionate about their research and interpreting history. Help them find hundreds of historical photographs, documents, film and audio recordings related to this year's theme Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, Events.    

 
"Students have always told us how much they loved their National History Day experience and how it has changed their life, both in their academics and their careers. History not only teaches students about the stories of our past, but is vital to creating a generation of young people who can apply these lessons to the future." - Cokie Roberts

I hope these resources will help you bring the excitement of discovering history to your young patrons.

Katrina Harkness, Education Officer   

State Library & Archives of Florida

Katrina.Harkness@dos.myflorida.com  

Out of the Box is a place where library activities and programs are shared.  This month features an emergent literacy program at the Pioneer Library System, Norman, Oklahoma.  

Growing Like a Read: Tailoring an Early Literacy Program for Your Community

Growing Like a Read Poster

Jenny Stenis, Coordinator of Children's Services at the Center for Children's Services, Pioneer Library System, Norman, Oklahoma and Valerie Kimble, Librarian/Selector at the Center for Children's Services, Pioneer Library System, Norman, Oklahoma (jenny@pls.lib.ok.us)

Children's librarians try hard. They buy the best books, attend the best workshops and conferences, plan and deliver the best story times, read the best and latest professional literature, incorporate best practices. But they may only see a child for 30 to 45  minutes per week or less. Children's librarians can model, provide information and tips and recommend books and activities, but they can't do it all. They don't have the concentrated time with the children to work on pre-reading skills that pave the way for brain development in young children.

Children's librarians can offer programs and develop materials that support parents and caregivers in their roles as their children's first teachers. Baby, toddler and preschool story times provide the perfect opportunity to reach the parents and caregivers as well as the children to demonstrate and market the best materials and methods to develop language and early literacy skills. It has to be up to the parents and caregivers of young children who are with them hour after hour to instill the ritual and repetition necessary for early brain development. Early literacy skills are all about brain development, not learning how to read.

Staff of the Children's Center of the Pioneer Library System (PLS), a public library system with 10 branches that serve a diverse suburban and rural population in Cleveland, McClain and Pottawatomie counties in central Oklahoma, realized that encouraging parents and caregivers to read aloud to their children was not sufficient. Families, whether because they lived far from the library or because they were constantly on the go, needed to have a book of their own and a series of simple, purposeful activities appropriate to their children's developmental levels that promoted one-to-one language interaction between the adult and the child.

To provide parents with the tools they need to create a language-rich environment and extend learning beyond the library walls, PLS staff researched the literature, attended national trainings, assembled best practices, and developed Growing Like a Read (GLAR). Now in its fourth year, the program is still growing and reaching new families. Branch staff is committed to promoting GLAR to parents in the library and to daycare providers on outreach visits, while Children's Center staff and GLAR developers Jenny Stenis and Valerie Kimble are focusing on outreach to non-library users.

In research and practice, Growing Like a Read is based on the ALA Public Library Association's Every Child Ready to Read @ your library (ECRR). ECRR laid out the groundwork for promoting pre-reading skills in the public library. Children's librarians Jenny Stenis and Valerie Kimble at Pioneer Library System's Center for Children's Services ran with it. They developed GLAR, which incorporates all the principles of ECRR and provides materials for the parents and the caregivers to use to work with their children on a one-to-one basis. ECRR research says this is the best way.

Read more at the Programming Librarian.