A Script for Success

Talking points can make storytime a much richer experience for everyone

By Renea Arnold and Nell Colburn -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2004

Do you remember the days when parents waited outside the room for their preschoolers to be finished with storytime? Sometimes the librarian was the only adult in the room. How things have changed. Now grown-ups regularly attend storytime and seem to enjoy it as much as their little ones. And librarians realize that their adult audience is just as important as their young one.

Recognizing the critical role that parents and caregivers play in developing children's early literacy skills, we've recently added something new for the adults who attend storytime. Our youth services staff has started to incorporate very specific comments to adults into their storytimes for babies, toddlers, and older preschoolers. As a result of the "Every Child Ready to Read @your library" initiative, we've become more aware of the importance of letting adults know that what we do in storytime is based on reading research and will help preschoolers develop important emergent literacy skills. (Visit www.pla.org or see our April 2004 column for more information.) We want people to think of library storytimes as more than "free entertainment." We also want parents, caregivers, and teachers to model our techniques—and they are most likely to do that if they understand the educational value of what we do.

Most of our staffers have incorporated "adult comments" into their storytimes effortlessly, but some are finding it difficult. So we've developed a list of talking points for storytime programmers to use with parents of children of different ages. The list functions as a kind of script of what to say to parents until the ideas are internalized. These talking points have helped staff share some of the most useful early literacy information and to become more comfortable talking with adults. We hope you will adapt them to your needs and use them with the adults who enjoy your storytimes. Of course, each storytime includes only two or three comments for parents, so it's not too intrusive on your time with the children.

The two most important messages that we share are appropriate for every age group. The first is "children's early literacy development is rooted in a larger system of language development, so talk, talk, and talk to your children—positively, of course." And it's corollary: "you can do a lot to help prepare your children to learn to read." Other messages are more age-related. Here is a brief sampling of specific comments that you may want to try.

In a baby storytime:

"The sooner you start sharing books with your baby, the more likely she will be interested in them. It's never too early."
"Point out familiar pictures and name them; that's how his vocabulary grows."
"Read for just a short time, many times a day. Make books part of her everyday life by having them available for her."
"Let him be in control of selecting what to read and turning the pages; no need to read all the words on every page, just have fun!"

In a toddler storytime:

"Continue reading with enthusiasm even if he walks away; he will still benefit from hearing the rich language."
"Children who are read to three times per week or more do much better in later development than children who are read to less than three times per week."
"Children learn the most from books when they are actively involved in them. So ask him lots of questions, pause to let him answer the question or finish talking, then expand on his answer."

In a preschooler storytime:

"Your child doesn't need worksheets or flashcards to learn to read, but the more time you spend reading and playing sound games will help him."
"Let your child see you reading and writing or find interesting articles in the newspaper to share with her."
"Have your child be an author and illustrator. Encourage your child to make up her own story, dictate it to you, and draw the pictures to go with it."