Early Childhood Literacy Initiative; Selecting books for preschoolers and toddlers

News August 10, 2007 (mp3 file: 3.16 MB, 3:27 min.)
Early Childhood Literacy and Libraries; Selecting books for preschoolers and toddlers.

As you probably know by now, the Library Service Areas are working on an early childhood literacy initiative this year, and right now we’re working out specific objectives and activities. Our overall goals are to have at 1000 more Iowa children better ready for school, and 500 parents better able to help their children to be ready to learn. We’re talking about storytime kits, workshops for you, collection development tools, grandparents’ fairs….We’re very excited about this initiative, and you can expect to hear and see much more about it.

Sue has been giving you information and ideas already, in her portion of the weekly podcasts, and here at SWILSA we’re already started on some storytime kits and resources, some items to help you get the word out to your community about the importance of Early Childhood Literacy—and there’s a library—or two—already interested in a Grandparents’ Fair.

On a related note: Wings Youth will be a bit different this year. The usual time, at the end of March, has been pre-empted by the PLA conference in Minneapolis. The LSAs are bringing in a national presenter on early childhood literacy, likely in March, so we’re thinking that we’ll just build around that workshop for Wings Youth this year. Stay tuned! --Karen