'Reading Rainbow' Funds Math Program With ALSC

Staff -- School Library Journal, 6/1/1998

Public librarians are no strangers to Reading Rainbow, the long-running PBS children's show that promotes books and reading. So when the program's producers got a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to do outreach on math, it seemed natural that librarians were among the people they approached for help.

The result is "Math Is Everywhere: Read All About It," a math-oriented reading program for children in kindergarten to third grade to be tested this summer in eight public libraries. Ideas for the program were developed by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. Reading Rainbow used part of its NSF grant to design and publish the materials.

Reading Rainbow and ALSC hope that after the summer, the pilot sites will be able to tell them how best to use the materials with children. The sponsors then hope to share both the materials and ideas with any library that wants them.