Creating an Online Road to Reading Colorado Libraries for ...

Creating an Online Road to Reading Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL)

FY09-10

Project Purpose:

Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy (CLEL), in partnership with Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Services, expanded early literacy storytime expertise for Colorado library staff, parents, and childcare providers by creating "StoryBlocks," an online video resource. CLEL produced 12 English and 4 Spanish literacy-based story time video clips as well as a website to support public library staff, parents and child care providers. . The website displays 30 - 60 second video clips that model songs, rhymes, and fingerplays appropriate for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Each clip includes helpful early literacy tips to increase understanding of child development and pre-literacy needs. These songs, rhymes, and fingerplays can be used by library staff to engage young children and to help the staff incorporate research-proven early literacy techniques into storytimes. To support StoryBlocks, Rocky Mountain PBS has hosted the videos on their server thus providing another conduit for parents to access the videos. CLEL is a collaboration of over thirty public libraries and other interested parties who believe that all children deserve the joy of reading and the skills in life that literacy brings. CLEL is passionately committed to strengthening children's literacy through library services and community advocacy. In 2000, the Public Library Association (PLA) and the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) conducted research into the early literacy experiences that provide the foundation for the development of strong reading skills. Research involved early brain development, environmental influences, how children acquire skills needed to learn how to read, and the early literacy skills themselves. The brain grows to about 80% of adult size by 3 years and 90% by age 5. Language (and hearing language) is fundamental to most of the rest of cognitive development. Talking and listening - skills inherent in storytimes - is one of the best ways to make the most of a child's critical brain-building years. This research culminated in the development of the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) program - a key aspect of which is its focus on children's acquisition of six early literacy skills.

Project Activities:

CLEL members: ?Identified 30 songs, rhymes, and stretches/fingerplays in English and Spanish which we have permission to use or that are in the public domain for the target age groups (babies, toddlers, preschoolers). ?Determined which ECRR tip(s) to include with each video clip and wrote scripts for these tips. ?Selected 8 performers for the 16 songs and rhymes in English and Spanish. Each performed two songs or rhymes. ?Worked with the contracted vendor, Q-Digital Studio, to organize, design, create, and develop the newly-named StoryBlocks website at . ?Launched the StoryBlocks website with the video clips ?Produced a webinar to promote the use of the StoryBlocks website: August 27, 2010. Nineteen library staff attended and received an Early Literacy Kit (ECRR skills book list, Mother Goose book, pamphlets, and flyers about early literacy). ?Promoted the StoryBlocks website statewide through Colorado library networks, early literacy/child care provider networks, and Colorado Department of Education early childhood networks. (Libnet, CYS-Lib, CDE e-mail lists from Early Childhood unit) ?Promoted the StoryBlocks website nationally through PUBLIB, PUBYAC, ALSC, YS-Con, Continuing Education Forum, and Learning Round Table email lists. ?Promoted the StoryBlocks website statewide with mailings of promotional materials to all public library directors and trustees. ?Are working with Colorado public libraries to make an easy link from their library websites to the website

Rocky Mountain PBS: ?Filmed and edited each song/rhyme to a one-minute final format with CLEL, Colorado State Library, and IMLS attribution. ?Developed Flash files of the video clips which are available via streaming videos hosted on their website. ?Promoted the StoryBlocks website in online, e-mail, television, and print formats. 28,000 subscribers received the information from the PBS E-Newsletter.

LSTA and matching cash funds were used to pay for contract services with Rocky Mtn. PBS and Q Digital Studio LTD as well as supplies and printing. LSTA funds paid for the Web site Domain registration. Project evaluation costs were provided in-kind from the Library Research Service. PBS also provided in-kind support for video development.

Project Outputs:

Webinar participants: 18 participants from 12 public libraries, 1 participant from the US Air Force Academy Base Library. Denver Public Library had 4 participants from branch libraries.

StoryBlocks website data: From August 1, 2010 through September 19, 2010, the StoryBlocks site was visited nearly 7,500 times, an average of 150 times per day. Visitors stayed on the site for an average of 22 minutes. All video pages were accessed more than 100 times. The most popular video (1297 hits) was Baby Hop followed by Chocolate Chocolate (1032), Choo Choo Train (982), and Can You Stretch (960). Most visitors are coming in from the United States, but we also have international visitors (e.g. from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, Brazil, France, Czech Republic). 53 comments have been left on the site to date. All videos are rated 4 or higher on a 5-point scale, with 216 total votes being placed.

Project Outcomes:

Between July and September of 2010, two brief evaluations were made available after watching the videos, one for librarians and other child care staff and one for parents or caregivers. The number of responses received varied greatly between the staff and parent evaluations, with 130 responses to the staff survey and 20 responses to the parent survey. Staff:

?Overall, staff respondents had a high level of agreement with the eight statements about the videos. ?Nearly all staff respondents (98.4%) would be likely to recommend StoryBlocks videos to parents and caregivers, as 58.9 percent strongly agreed, 36.4 percent agreed, and 3.1 percent somewhat agreed with the corresponding statement ?Additionally, between 64.6 and 94.6 percent of all respondents either strongly agreed or agreed with the rest of the statements provided. ?Staff respondents are very likely to recommend the early literacy tips highlighted in the StoryBlocks videos ? 98.5 percent strongly agreed, agreed, or somewhat agreed with the statement "I am likely to share these early literacy tips with parents and caregivers on a regular basis." ?The statement that drew the highest level of uncertainty from respondents was "When I have shared these early literacy tips with parents, the majority of responses have been positive. About three-fourths of respondents (73.3%) indicated that they strongly agreed, agreed, or somewhat agreed with this statement, and 26.8 percent indicated that they didn't know. In contrast, no more than 1.6 percent of respondents gave "don't know" responses for the other statements. The reason for this uncertainty could be because staff had not yet been able to share the tips learned from the StoryBlocks videos with parents at the time of the survey. Parents were asked to rate their level of agreement with six statements assessing their responses to the videos, e.g., "I involve my child more in the books we read together." The results showed that:

?Similar to the staff respondents, parent respondents generally had a high level of agreement with the statements provided. No parents selected "disagree" for any of the statements. ?When asked their level of agreement with the statements "I understand why songs and rhymes are important in my child's development" and "I would recommend these videos to other parents and caregivers," all parent respondents either strongly agreed or agreed. ?Parent respondents are very likely to watch more videos with early literacy tips, as 17 strongly agreed and 3 somewhat agreed with this statement. ?Parents' agreement with the statement "I read more often with my child" was somewhat lower; five said they somewhat agree and one parent was not sure. One possibility for these responses is that parents that watch StoryBlocks videos are likely to already read frequently to their children. The entire evaluation report produced by the Library Research Service is available at:

Anecdotal Info:

Parent responses from the StoryBlocks Feedback form: ?Great videos with role modeling of songs and rhymes. Thanks a lot for the transcripts (I used to do it myself repeating the YouTube videos painfully) and the tips. I copy paste them and print them together to practice with my daughter. Please more videos for the future, if you can! By the way some GOOD acting! PS I live in Europe ?The videos are most helpful to me in understanding how rhymes and songs help my children learn to read, and in helping me learn new rhymes and songs to do with them. ?I love that these are designed to teach parents how to do the rhymes rather than being another video for children to be plopped down to watch. I was surprised to find my 17-month old starting to do the "Choo choo train" hand motions with me. Having a transcript is very helpful Sure helps to hear the early literacy skill come from someone else's lips so easily. So now I know to practice. Have the Baby Hop CD so we can go through it and then do the music version too! Thanks. for learning the rhyme.

Staff responses from the StoryBlocks Feedback form: ?Great job! I work on our kid's website, so I am thrilled to be able to link to these. Embedding them on our site would be really nice though. I already added the Dinosaur Rhyme to a page about doing a Dinosaur Storytime. ?I want more, more, more! ?I started my job as a children's librarian last year & was thrown into planning storytimes for toddlers, babies and Pre-K aged children with little to no instruction. The people I was working with were not interested in holding storytimes which included rhymes & songs, and though I read professional books on the topic I couldn't quite imagine how a person would actually perform the songs & rhymes interspersed with simple books. After a fair amount of research I found enough videos on YouTube that showed people performing these early childhood songs & rhymes (an extensive one is Cullen's ABCs) both within the context of storytime and on their own. I feel much more confident about holding storytimes now for all ages. Your website will be great for new librarians to model their programs on, and as a great resource for seasoned veterans to get new ideas from. I look forward to watching more videos & if possible, I'd recommend modeling a portion of a full storytime to show recommended transitions from songs to rhymes, to stories to more rhymes. Thanks! ?I am excited to have my ECE [early childhood education] training reaffirmed and see the libraries on board with developmentally appropriate activities. ?I can't wait to try the Alphabet Monster in preschool story time. I know they will love it! Thanks! ?Sure helps to hear the early literacy skill come from someone else's lips so easily. So now I know to practice. Have the Baby Hop CD so we can go through it and then do the music version too! Thanks. ?Songs and rhymes help children to build literacy and language skill and promote excitement. It encourages large and fine motor movements. It has also been known to promote laughter and happiness.

Budget:

LSTA funding: $22,209

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