Opinion Posts

1^st Opinion Post (504 words):

I began this project recalling a family story time that I created and performed for a small, local public library as part of a service project for one of my undergraduate classes. As a working mother of a very young child, I was disappointed at my library’s lack of story times in the evening. I felt that, even though I was reading to my child at home, that we were missing out on additional literacy and learning opportunities. For my project, I instituted a family story time that took place in the evening, so that working parents were able to bring their children. The librarian was cautiously optimistic about the project, saying that it was a good idea, but warning me to not get discouraged if we did not see very good attendance over the 8-week course of the project. The first week was indeed pretty sparse, but attendance really took off after that. There were usually at least 8 children with one or more parent figures (sometimes grandparents came, too) each week, and I heard many of the adults say how grateful they were to have a program like that. I was so happy to have all of those children able to participate in the story time, and at the time I was content with focusing on the story time books and activities that I was introducing. Turnout and participation was good, and I was getting good feedback from the children and parents. I did not think about other ways to engage with the parents to make sure that the learning and literacy activities were going on beyond the scope of the library story time.

When I began thinking about this project, I went back to how great it was to be able to provide another opportunity for parents to engage in literacy-building activities with their children, and wanting to do even more. I considered how I could use an online tool to allow parents to take information related to the story time home with them. I initially considered creating a blog, with each post detailing the story time books and activities, and then offering further activities for that topic through posting instructions for activities or links to other websites that had those activities. However, I know that parents do not always have a lot of free time to spend reading a blog, so I wanted something that would be a little faster for them to use. The recent immense popularity of Pinterest made it seem like a good tool to look into for this purpose. It is based on images, so a parent could find something they thought looked interesting and be directed to that page with one click. Words are kept to a minimum, so parents should be able to quickly look at options and choose which ones they want to pursue with minimal time. The popularity of Pinterest also makes it likely that parents will already be familiar with it, or will know someone who knows how to use it.

2^nd Opinion Post (513 words):

As I was doing research on early childhood literacy intervention to find support for this project, and as I was creating boards on Pinterest, I thought about possible issues that may arise with the use of this technology tool in particular, and with the use of technology tools in general. First, there is the obvious implied expectation that patrons will have adequate access to the internet. Another, slightly less obvious, expectation is that patrons will be able to access and use the material pinned to the Pinterest boards once they have internet access. While I mentioned at the outset of this project that I expected Pinterest to be popular enough that if patrons did not know how to use it, they would be able to find someone who did, I neglected to fully consider different types of libraries and library patron groups. While it is likely that a library without the targeted patron group of parents with children would not participate in a program such as this, it is certainly possible that a parent’s main internet access might come from a smaller library with an older demographic. This would make it more likely that the parent may not be able to find someone at that library to help them use Pinterest if they were not already familiar. A library that uses this program might consider offering instructional sessions on how to get the most out of the online component to the story time, in this case, Pinterest. Printing, which is needed to use some of the activities that are linked from the Pinterest boards that I created, is another potential issue for patrons for similar reasons. Libraries creating their own Pinterest boards would need to take this into consideration for those patrons who do not have access to printers outside of the library.

Furthermore, libraries would need to take into consideration the learning curve associated with any kind of technology, and the likelihood that its patron base has adequate access to it. If a patron feels that they do not have time to learn how to use the technology, it is less likely that they will be interested in actually using it. Would their lack of interest in technology-related skills impede their child’s literacy rate? While literacy in the areas of reading and writing for children is what this project is aimed at, it requires that the parents have, or be willing to acquire, a sort of technology literacy. Would parents who do not have technology skills feel that the story time portion of the program would not be useful to them? Hopefully not, as any exposure to reading and literacy activities is a step in the right direction for children, but this is something that libraries must take into consideration. Even though this project is aimed at increasing parent and caregiver access to literacy activities, which will ultimately work towards helping their children become better readers and writers, libraries must not forget that access issues are still present, and to not let this initiative become exclusive to any one group over another.

3^rd Opinion Post (521 words):

Now that the project has come to as much of an end as it can, for this type of program will always be evolving based on an individual library’s needs and patron groups, several ideas have emerged about implications of a program such as this, as well as ways to take this program even farther. First, early childhood literacy intervention is so important. Many of the articles I read while researching this topic mentioned that it is possible to approach literacy intervention too late, although I am of the personal opinion that adults should never give up on educating children and helping them to become more and better. Additionally, nearly all of the research that I did indicates that children have much higher literacy rates when their parents or caregivers are involved in the process at home. Early childhood literacy must not be something that is only accomplished at nursery schools, daycare center, and libraries. Parents must get involved in supporting their children through this monumental task. Some roadblocks, such as a parent’s lack of confidence in their ability to help their children with literacy interventions, are present. However, a program such as this, where a library works to provide literacy activities, but also supports parents by supplying them with additional literacy tools, will do much to help parents feel that they can and should be practicing literacy with their children every day. While there are certainly accessibility issues regarding internet access and the ability to effectively use these tools, libraries can also support their patrons by providing instructional workshops or other assistance with learning such skills.

Pinterest allows users to “re-pin” pins and ideas, and it also has the capabilities for groups or individual users to add pins to a single board. There are also tools available through Pinterest, as well as add-ons available through various web browsers, that allow for the easy creation of pins from different websites. Using these tools and functions, the library is in a good place to promote a sense of community among parents interested in boosting their children’s literacy at home. Pinterest is free to use, so patrons could set up their own accounts, post different ideas to each other’s, or the library’s, boards and also use ideas that other parents have posted. When I think about teaching young children, I tend to think that the more opportunities we have to introduce new material in different ways, the better. So while the aim of this project is to increase early childhood literacy through the use of a library story time and an accompanying Pinterest account, the resulting community of parents with the same interests is likely to add ideas and materials to carry this out. This program would need to have an evaluation component to see how it is reaching parents, and thus children, and to work on what needs are not yet being met through the story times and Pinterest boards. An additional evaluation of how accessible these materials are for parents and caregivers would also be an important step in making sure that this program is reaching the maximum amount of people.

 

photo credit: http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/writing_assignments/index.html