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#1 LSTA Early Literacy Grant DRAFT 8/11/10 Memo/overview regarding the Early Literacy LSTA Grant Proposal that Sharon Grover will discuss at the Library Board meeting. LSTA 2011 Competitive Grant Categories “Literacy - $100,000 will be awarded to promote and demonstrate the role of public libraries in improving literacy and reading skills for people having difficulty using libraries because of their educational, cultural, or socioeconomic background.” School readiness is a matter of great concern to schools all over the country and Janesville is no exception. School readiness is the impetus behind such programs as Preschool for Janesville (P4J), early childhood education classes that provide intervention for at-risk children, and the Federal Head Start and Early Head Start programs. In order for children to be ready for school, it is important for parents and care givers to understand that literacy development begins with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Public libraries in Janesville and Rock County play a critical role in early literacy instruction, providing community storytimes and working directly with other early childhood care providers such as those mentioned above. These close working relationships in our communities have drawn attention to the need for training to increase and enhance the ability of care givers and teachers as well as school and public librarians to employ and promote early literacy development tools and strategies in their interactions with young children and their families. This training is particularly critical at a time when risk factors such as poverty and higher concentrations of non-native English speakers are increasing in Janesville and Rock County. For example, in the 2007-2008 school year, the School District of Janesville reported that 2% of pre-K children lived in poverty. In 2009-2010, that number rose to 6%. Arrowhead Library System Director Ruth Ann Montgomery reports, “According to the 2005 American Community Survey Data Profile for Rock County (U.S. Census Bureau, 8/17/07), it is estimated that over 8,500 Latinos live in Rock County, an increase of 7,000 since 2000. Many speak only Spanish at home.” 1 DRAFT 8/11/10 This grant will provide training to incorporate research-based early literacy strategies into library storytimes and preschool circle times. In addition, the training will give teachers, care givers, and librarians the tools to carry the important early literacy message to the most important early learning providers – parents. This training, based in part on principles from the American Library Association initiative “Every Child Ready to Read @ Your Library©” will assist in the successful creation of new outreach services to parents, particularly those who have been underserved by public libraries: teen parents, parents for whom transportation is a barrier to attending library programming, and parents from diverse backgrounds who may be unfamiliar the concept of community public library service. In addition, this grant will provide opportunities for increased collaboration among a wide variety of community agencies serving our early childhood population. Collaborating partners will include (but are not limited to): ?School District of Janesville P4J and early childhood providers ?School District of Janesville Library Media Specialists ?Head Start and Early Head Start coordinators and staff ?Even Start coordinator and staff ?The Literacy Connection ?Dr. Allison Kaplan, UW-Madison School of Information and Library Science, who is studying evaluation strategies for public library storytime programs Money (amount as yet undetermined, but most likely between $5,000-$7,000) will make possible the following: ?Training for preschool providers, teachers, and school and public librarians in techniques to promote early literacy development strategies to parents and care givers and to provide early literacy skills’ development through programming. Initial trainers will be Dr. Betsy Diamant-Cohen and Saroj Ghoting Dr. Diamant-Cohen and Ms. Ghoting have both been heavily o involved in creating and presenting programs on early literacy with babies through preschool children and their parents and care givers. They have both written extensively on this topic. 2 DRAFT 8/11/10 Their personalities and presentation styles are very different, o allowing library staff and care givers to observe how well early literacy skills can be incorporated into story- and circle time regardless of personal style. Additional training on incorporating Universal Design for Learning o (UDL) in story- and circle time settings will be provided by Kathy S. White, School District of Janesville. ?Funds to hire Bilingual Outreach Coordinator René Bue outside her regular HPL work hours to attend the training and to then provide workshops and programs for Spanish-speaking parents, care givers, and children. ?Funds to hire Young Adult Librarian Laurie Bartz outside her regular HPL work hours to attend training and to then provide workshops and programs for teen parents and their babies. ?Funds to create early literacy storytime kits to circulate through HPL; these kits will be available to all patrons, including Arrowhead libraries, schools, preschools and other day care providers. Each kit will contain a selection of books, puppets and other realia, o early literacy tip sheets, fingerplays and movement activities, as well as one or more music CDs. The kits will be created by staff at HPL and each would focus on a o particular theme and/or literacy-building skill. HPL will maintain and expand this collection through a o combination of local materials funds and supplemental funding from the HPL Foundation and/or Friends of the Library. ?Funds to purchase a complete set of Reading Rockets’ early literacy DVD series, Launching Young Readers, for each school and public library and participating preschool center. 3