Multnomah on a Mission

Storytime ended 10 minutes ago, but two-year-old Olajuwon wanders to the blue chair his daycare "Mom" occupies when she reads to the class. He searches for his favorite book, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken Pox, and turns the pages with fervor, shouting "Chick, chick, chick pox!" until he seizes everyone's attention. "Seeeee, I can read!" he yells, and proudly dumps a few more books on the floor.

Like thousands of other youngsters attending in-home and childcare centers throughout the Portland, OR, area, Olajuwon and his classmates in Cammie Richy's basement have clearly benefited from Multnomah County Library's (MCL) ambitious Early Words program. The innovative project, which helps preschoolers develop language and preliteracy skills before kindergarten, was launched in response to a rising problem. Throughout the 1990s, MCL officials noticed that as many as 40 percent of youngsters entering school lacked the skills necessary to become successful readers.

With $241,000 in grants and through extensive partnerships with other like-minded agencies—including the Commission on Children, Families, and Community of Multnomah County, the state-run Great Start program, United Way, and Legacy Health System—the library expanded its outreach program in 1999 by providing language-development training to daycare providers, teachers, and parents.

"We had to ratchet up our efforts as we continued to hear that kids weren't ready for kindergarten," explains MCL's Youth Services Coordinator Ellen Fader. "We've proven, and continue to prove, that libraries can make a difference."

In recognition of MCL's achievement, School Library Journal has selected the Early Words program as the recipient of the third annual Giant Step Award, an honor given to the public or school library that has most improved its youth services. The award also comes with a $10,000 prize from the Gale Group, cosponsor of the award. For an in-depth look at the key components of this program, see "The Secrets of Their Success," on page 46.

With a bustling downtown location and 17 local branches, MCL has always been responsive to the needs of its neighbors. Although 81 percent of the metro population is white, the county has the largest proportion of minorities in Oregon, including a Hispanic community that has risen nearly 200 percent in the last 10 years. To keep pace with its users, MCL has long offered outreach services to nursing homes, schools, emergency shelters, and jails, doling out thousands of books. And the hundreds of computers stationed throughout its system are in constant use.

MCL has much to be proud of. Its youth services staff is highly trained. There's an abundance of new quality books and lots of storytimes. A "Born to Read" parent-education course on the importance of reading to children serves teen parents through various social service agencies and drug and alcohol treatment programs, while a family childcare program models storytimes for daycare teachers and delivers books to family-run centers.

But that wasn't enough.

In 1997, the Kindergarten Teacher Survey on School Readiness, administered by the state's Department of Education, found that nearly half of the students who did not attend a formal preschool program, as well as a third of the children who did, were lacking in one or more areas of school readiness.

A second study a year later, sponsored by the county's Commission on Children, Families, and Community and the Portland Progress Board, concluded that 40 percent of the children entering kindergarten were deficient in at least one of several tested areas, including verbal skills and cognitive development. The study also discovered that the number of Hispanic children under the age of five had more than tripled since 1980 and that the population of Asian children had doubled.

When MCL officials analyzed these statistics, they soon realized they needed to create a program to enhance the literacy skills of the adults who took care of the county's children. Fader and MCL's Early Childhood Resources Program Manager Renea Arnold wanted a program that stressed books throughout the day and included singing with children, reading to babies, and making storytime more interactive. The program also had to be free for daycare providers, available on- and off-site, and include incentives of books and reimbursements.

"We wanted childcare providers to see that books are as indispensable to children as kids think toys are," Arnold says. "It's not just looking at a book as an object to use for storytime; it's getting through to providers that it's what they do with the whole experience."

When the county commission began funding proposals in 1999 to improve services to young children and their families, MCL was able to turn its Early Words program into a reality. A second grant of $260,000, in October 2001, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has allowed the program to flourish.

Over the years, the Early Words program has earned many kudos from participating parents and childcare providers who have described it as "great," "very beneficial," and the "best class" they've ever taken. For in-home Portland daycare provider Adrianne Bailey, who takes care of a half-dozen children, ages one to six, the mentoring program has offered a winning recipe. "I learned how to interact with the kids at storytime as opposed to just reading to them,'' she says, adding she's also managed to keep tots with such a wide age span interested in the same book. While Bailey sometimes reads herself, more often the older kids will take a turn, or some of the younger ones will recite lines from memory or ad-lib to practice their vocabulary.

But perhaps more important are the raw numbers that back up the anecdotal praise. So far, the library has reached 25,000 children thorough its storytimes and has conducted more than 360 training sessions attended by nearly 2,000 childcare providers and 500 parents. More than 400 providers received mentoring, while 200 childcare centers enrolled in the library's book delivery program and now receive age-appropriate books every two months. Meanwhile, approximately 3,000 boxes of literacy videos and enticements for newborns have been delivered to first-time moms and dads as part of the New Parent Gifts program.

A spring 2001 follow-up evaluation found that Early Words training produced statistically significant changes in childcare providers' attitudes about literacy, as well as many positive improvements in the children's daily literacy activities, such as increased exposure to the alphabet and multicultural literature, more opportunities to write, and better quality and availability of books. Another evaluation found that more than 75 percent of participating providers agreed that literacy-enhancing activities were "very important"; 86 percent reported creating or expanding their book nook; 55 percent allowed children to have more daily access to writing materials; and 53 percent allowed children to have more access to books. Providers' own literacy skills also increased, with more than half saying their "reading out loud" skills had improved.

MCL officials now face the challenge of fueling the program's momentum with less funding. They are busy writing grants and partnering with other community organizations, and they plan to continue mentoring and training childcare providers, albeit on a smaller scale, and with internal staff. They also may use the $10,000 prize that comes with the Giant Step Award to develop a more advanced literacy class—an Early Words II for daycare providers who have the basics down and want to expand their knowledge—and a training program for children with special needs.

Both Fader and Arnold urge other communities to examine their goals and financial realities to tailor a preliteracy and early language development program to suit their own needs. The scalability of the Early Words program is part of what makes it attractive to other libraries, and the program's curriculum can be downloaded from its Web site (www.earlywords.net).

"While it would be difficult for other library systems around the country to replicate the project because of its significant financial requirements, there are many examples of 'good practice' that could be adapted by libraries and library systems regardless of size, geographic region, or financial position," says Giant Step juror Ann Carlson Weeks of the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland.

Fader urges libraries to build strong partnerships with organizations that have similar objectives, such as school districts, local Head Start programs, religious organizations, and child advocacy groups. Also, try pitching story ideas to local media outlets and inquire about creating public service announcements. "Look at the challenges you're facing in your community and do what you have with your resources," Fader says. "Look for your natural partners and work with them—your program will grow and it will look like what's right for your community."