Are Public Libraries the Preschooler’s Door to Learning?
Kathleen Reif, on behalf of the Maryland Association of Public Library Administrators Birth to Five Task Force
The Maryland Association of Public Library Administrators created a Birth to Five Task Force to help Maryland’s public libraries get involved in the various community programs being created to “help children start school ready to learn.” This article presents information collected during the past two years about national resources and initiatives, shares some lessons learned, and describes a new Public Library Association partnership that will help public libraries become an essential resource in getting children ready to learn to read.
In 1992 the National Governor’s Association issued The National Education Goals with the following as Goal One: “By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn.” While the target date has been dropped, this goal still seems to be holding the attention of our elected and appointed officials.
During the 1990s, countless numbers of federal, state, and local initiatives were created to achieve this goal. How many included public library services in the new stream of funding? About two years ago, public library administrators in Maryland noticed that the answer for our state was “Zilch!” As a result, in July 1998 the Maryland Association of Public Library Administrators (MAPLA) created a Birth to Five Task Force to see how we could change that situation. This task force was co-chaired by myself and Harriet Henderson, director of Montgomery County Department of Libraries and, at that time, incoming president of PLA. Other task force members included representatives from five additional library systems and the children’s coordinator for the state library office. (All participants are listed in the contributor’s note at the end of this article.)
What we discovered, from the federal to the local levels, was that not only did these new initiatives not include public library services and funding but, when we talked with the officials designing these programs, each one exclaimed: “Wow, we never thought about public libraries. What a great idea!”
How could this be? Since PLA’s Planning and Role Setting Manual was published in 1987, public librarians across this country have been calling public libraries “the preschooler’s door to learning.” And Maryland’s public libraries seem to be a healthy and well-utilized public service:
- Fifty-five percent of the 5.1 million people in Maryland have a library card.
- Eighteen million children’s items circulated from Maryland libraries in FY99 (39 percent of 45.5 million items).
- Nearly every one of the twenty-four public libraries in Maryland claimed the “preschooler’s door to learning” as a priority role and devoted extra resources to programming, outreach, staff training, collection development, etc., in this area.
- Many of our libraries have been providing innovative outreach services for years, even decades. In fact, many of these services began as LSCA grants designed to meet the goal of “helping all children start school ready to learn.”
Fortunately, the story in Maryland is unfolding more optimistically than it began. Through a variety of strategies, Maryland’s public librarians have gotten themselves to the tables where preschool initiatives are discussed and created. Some local libraries have even received funds from brand new sources in order to create and improve public library services for this target group.
Over the past two years, the MAPLA Birth to Five Task Force has gathered information and learned some lessons that we felt should be shared with the rest of the profession. We also are certain that librarians in other states have information and contacts from which we can learn. We hope this article will begin that dialogue.
It also is my hope that this dialogue will result in a negative answer to the question posed in the title—public libraries are not the preschooler’s door to learning. Rather, we should be stating that “Public libraries help children start school ready to learn.” And, we add, “to READ,” as well.
National Resources and Initiatives
Public librarians are very fortunate to be providing public library services to preschoolers at this point in time. The goal of having all children start school ready to learn has been adopted by many federal and state politicians and agencies (which buys libraries instant credibility and support). Also, some highly influential research has been published on the topic of early childhood learning during the 1990s. These findings provide public librarians with strong arguments to justify funding for public library services to preschoolers. We must not miss out on this window of opportunity.
Brain Research
Research has shown that a person’s first three years have a significant impact on his or her intellectual and emotional development throughout his or her entire life. In 1997 the Families and Work Institute issued a paper based on the presentations at a 1996 conference titled “Brain Development in Young Children: New Frontiers for Research, Policy, and Practice.” It included the following finding and recommendation:
Early care has a decisive, long-lasting impact on how people develop, their ability to learn, and their capacity to regulate their own emotions.
Enable communities to have the flexibility and the resources they need to mobilize on behalf of young children and their families.1
This information continues to be discussed in the popular print and electronic media. In fact, several years ago, ALA and the Association for Library Service to Children worked with the I Am Your Child foundation and distributed free, to every public library, the videotape The First Years Last Forever. This is an excellent presentation for librarians and library customers.2
Reading Research
The 1998 publication of Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children by the National Research Council signaled a truce in what had been termed the “reading wars”—the debates between the advocates for a whole language approach to reading instruction and the advocates for phonics. This study included the following finding and recommendation:
There is abundant empirical and observational evidence that the children who are particularly likely to have difficulty with learning to read in the primary grades are those who begin school with less prior knowledge and skill in certain domains, most notably, general verbal abilities, phonological sensitivity, familiarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading, and letter knowledge.
We recommend that organizations and government bodies concerned with the education of young children promote public understanding of early literacy development. . . .3
At a national summit on learning disabilities in the same year, G. Reid Lyon presented a summary of research findings based on thirty-five years of research on how children learn to read. The research was conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The summary included the following finding and recommendation:
Reading out loud to children is a proven activity for developing vocabulary and language expansions characteristics, and plays an important role in developing receptive and expressive language skills.
A massive effort must be undertaken to inform parents and caretakers of the importance of providing oral language and literacy experiences from the first days of life—to engage children in playing with language through nursery rhymes, storybooks, and as they mature, early writing activities.4
In 1997 Congress called upon the director of NICHD to create the National Reading Panel to identify practical, research-based findings on how children learn to read. The National Reading Panel’s report, Teaching Children to Read, was released in April 2000.
Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS)
For the very first time, the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in collaboration with other federal agencies, will follow a national sample of children born in the year 2000 from birth through first grade. The MAPLA Task Force members heard about this survey while the instrument was still being created by the NCES staff, led by Jerry West. After meeting with West, we discovered there were no questions in the survey about public library use. West and his staff worked with us to include some questions about public library use by these children and their families. Thus, in three to four years, our profession also should have some data about public library use by families with preschoolers. What a great opportunity this report will present for research on the impact of public library use before a child starts school.5
Systems Reform
The “reinventing government” movement of the 1990s has transformed into many federal and state initiatives aimed at “systems reform.” This new approach requires that solutions to community problems be developed through the formation of collaborative, inclusive boards that reflect all segments of the community. Many government and private funding sources are requiring (not just suggesting) this kind of collaboration. This presents public library systems with an excellent opportunity to step up to the table.
Assessment Tools
How does one determine if a child is starting school “ready to learn?” As you might expect, there are many checklists and measurement tools being marketed for just this purpose. Yes, the educational testing and measurement mania of our country is coming down to the three- and four-year-olds. The good news is that public librarians will now know the benchmarks and will be able to determine the best practices for public library services to help children start school ready to learn. In Maryland, the state’s legislative body has mandated that every public education system use a measurement tool called Work Sampling System Developmental Checklist (WSS).6 It will be administered to every child entering pre-K or kindergarten, and beginning in FY01 the legislature will receive the baseline data of the proficiency ratings by county as well as statewide. The children will be graded “proficient,” “in process,” or “not yet.” The checklist consists of seven domains, one of which is language and literacy, which includes the following skills/behaviors:
- listens with interest to stories read aloud;
- shows interest in reading-related activities;
- guesses what will happen next in a story using pictures as a guide;
- retells information from a story; and
- recognizes the association between spoken and written words.
Sound familiar? These could be the objectives for some of the story times we conduct!
Starting in FY01, the Maryland legislature will receive the baseline data of the proficiency ratings for each county. Some of our public libraries, on the initiative of the local jurisdictions, are working with other agencies to design services to impact the behaviors in this language domain. Hopefully, we will be able to conclude that public library use and services will prove to be a key factor in increasing the number of children that are “proficient” in the language and literacy domain.
Lessons Learned
Weave a Wider Web
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Public libraries are very small fish in the huge ocean of public services. Experience has taught us that public librarians do not set the government’s agenda. We can only impact it. Thus, to create public library services that can truly influence a child’s ability to start school ready to learn, public librarians must take on the following responsibilities:
- Determine the key individuals and groups driving the policies and programs for getting children ready to start school.
- Educate those persons or groups about public library services and the impact they can have on a child.
- LISTEN to their priorities and perspective to determine how public library services can be positioned in THEIR agenda.
Every time you do this, you will most likely hear the same response heard by Maryland librarians: “Wow, we never thought about public libraries. What a great idea!” Your work will be made easier when a government leader becomes an ardent library supporter. MAPLA joined Ready at Five, a statewide private/public partnership comprised of business leaders, pediatricians, senior citizens, advocates, and public agencies committed to increasing school readiness in young children in Maryland. This partnership, and the network it has given us access to, has been one of the principal reasons for any visibility and new contacts we have gained.
In May 1999 MAPLA hired the executive director of the Ready at Five Partnership as a consultant to plan and conduct a symposium titled “Maryland Public Libraries: Creating Connections to Help All Children Start School Ready to Learn to Read!” This was the beginning of a discussion by Maryland’s public library leaders as to whether the resources we were putting into preschool services were producing the optimum impact and were effectively targeting the intended audiences. Attendance at this symposium included representatives of every Maryland library system, including twenty-two of the twenty-eight library directors.
One of the speakers at this program was Janet DiPietro of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. DiPietro spoke about findings in brain research. In her presentation, she informed us about the reading research that was going on at NICHD by Reid Lyon at NICHD. This proved to be an invaluable tip. We discovered that NICHD had been conducting research on how children learn to read for thirty-five years. Good grief—none of us had ever heard about this? We immediately sent an e-mail message to Lyon expressing interest in working with him to discover what impact public libraries could have on emergent literacy skills. Within fifteen minutes he sent back a message that contained something to the effect of “Wow, we never thought about public libraries. What a great idea!” The subsequent meetings have resulted in a PLA partnership with NICHD, described in the sidebar on the previous page.
Don’t Wait for an Invitation
It is essential that a public library representative be on every board and group that is creating programs to help children start school ready to learn. If the board is mandated by law, the public library should be one of the designated partners. And it is crucial to have this representation mandated at the federal and state levels. That prevents each library jurisdiction from having to fight the same battle and also helps reduce the impact of local politics and personalities.
In 1990 Maryland passed a law that mandated the creation of a local management board (LMB) in each jurisdiction. The stated purpose of the LMB is to “build an effective system of services, supports, and opportunities that improves outcomes for children, youth, and families.” Several agencies were mandated to be on each local board, but not the public library. This has resulted in having to play a lot of catch-up on statewide initiatives and, at the local level, each of us has had to cajole our way onto the board. In some cases, local politics and personalities have made this impossible.
The best news from Maryland and the best strategy we have developed to help us “crash the parties” was the creation of a children’s coordinator position in the state library office. In 1997 the Division of Library Development and Services appointed its first children’s coordinator, Stephanie Shauck. She has played an essential role in gaining visibility and credibility for public libraries, not only in the various divisions and policies of the state board of education, but also in many other relevant statewide organizations and agencies.
Public Libraries Are Part of Government
Remember the Golden Rule: he or she who has the gold sets the rules. Public libraries are funded by tax dollars, so the folks who are doling them out better believe that public librarians are interested in solving the same community problems they are trying to solve. And the good news for public librarians is that one of the problems that community leaders wrestle with is that many children are not ready to learn when they start school—especially when it comes to language and literacy.
Working within the government sector also will teach us the language we need to use when we get to their table. We must be able to articulate public library services in their language. Maryland is involved in “systems reform,” which means that our public librarians are learning to talk about results, measurable impact, indicators, best/most effective practices, sustainability, partnerships, etc.
We are fortunate to have some programs and partnerships that public librarians can offer to our partners—for example, ALSC’s Born to Read program, the recent partnership with the Between the Lions PBS series, and the Family Place Libraries.7 What we must begin to do now, however, is to explain the reasons for these programs and other library services in the language of researchers and public policy makers. A good place to start is with the work of William H. Teale and S. B. Neuman.8 The PLA partnership with NICHD will further these efforts.
Be Careful What You Wish For
There is a possibility that these partnerships and initiatives might turn us into teachers, with our fates determined by a three-year-old’s performance on an assessment tool. However, if public librarians do not establish a role for our libraries in the continuum of services that help children start school ready to learn, one of two things will surely happen: (1) public libraries will continue to be excluded from discussion and funding; or (2) someone else will define our role for us. And if we miss this opportunity, it will be more than just the eBook that could make public libraries an anachronism.
Let’s work together and create a definition of public librarian that is unique from that of a teacher, but just as essential. And, in partnership with emergent literacy researchers, let’s determine the public library services that really do create a community of children that start school ready to learn to read.
Kathleen Reif is Director of Wicomico County Free Library, Salisbury, Maryland; kreif@wicomico.org. Other members of the MAPLA Birth to Five Task Force are Harriet Henderson, Montgomery County Department of Libraries; Lynn Lockwood, Baltimore County Public Library; Gail Griffith, Carroll County Library; Hope Chase, Howard County Library; Micki Freeny, Prince George’s County Library; Ellen Riordan, Enoch Pratt Free Library; and Stephanie Shauck, Maryland Division of Library Development and Services.
References
- Rima Shore, Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Develop ment. Families and Work Institute. 1997. Accessed Aug. 29, 2000, www.familiesandwork.org.
- First Years Last Forever. Video by I Am Your Child Foundation. www.iamyourchild.org.
- National Research Council, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Pr., 1998) 317–18.
- G. Reid Lyon. The NICHD Research Pro gram in Reading Development, Reading Disorders and Reading Instruc tion: A Summary of Research Findings. Keys to Successful Learning: A National Summit on Research in Learning Disabil ities. 1999. Accessed Aug. 29, 2000, www.ncld.org/summit99/ keys99-nichd.htm.
- National Center for Education Statistics. America’s Kindergartners: Findings from Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999. Fall 1998. NCES 2000-070. Accessed Aug. 29, 2000, www.nces.ed.gov/ecls/Birth/ Bsum.htm.
- Work Sampling System: Authentic Performance Assessment for Preschool through Grade 5 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Rebus, 1999).
- Association for Library Service to Children, American Library Association. Born to Read. 1-800-545-2433, ext. 1398. Family Place Libraries, a project of Libraries for the Future in partnership with the Middle Country Public Library, (212) 352-2333.
- William Teal, “Public Libraries and Emergent Literacy: Helping Set the Foundation for School Success,” in Achieving School Readiness: Public Libraries and National Education Goal No. 1, Barbara Foling Immroth and Viki Ash-Geisler (Chicago: American Library Association, 1995) 113–33; S. B. Neuman, Evaluation of the Books Aloud Project: Report to the William Penn Foundation. 1996. Temple Univ.