Start Spreading the News

Librarians have an opportunity to change the nation—one toddler at a time

By Rick Margolis, News and Features Editor -- School Library Journal, 7/1/2005

Lately, I've had babies on the brain. I can't help it. Here in New York City, they're everywhere one looks—gliding along in designer strollers, turning more heads than Paris Hilton. At School Library Journal, we've had three newborns in the past six months. As you might expect of people who work for a book-loving magazine, these first-time parents are not wasting any time introducing their little ones to the pleasures of print. In fact, at least one of our editors has already taken her five-month-old daughter to a storytime at her local library.

But I wonder: What will happen to all the other babies out there as they get older? It's my hope that by the time they become “terrible two-year-olds,” their parents will have discovered the joys of dialogic reading, a research-based technique that helps grown-ups and toddlers engage in good-natured conversations about picture books (see “Charming the Next Generation,” pp. 30–32). Studies have shown that toddlers who have been exposed to dialogic reading for only a few months are far better equipped to become successful readers than youngsters who are strangers to it. That's why the Public Library Association and the Association of Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, have made dialogic reading a major part of their splendid reading-promotion program, “Every Child Ready to Read @ your library.”

Right now, more than one in three children enter our nation's schools unprepared to learn. Dialogic reading—and librarians who teach the technique to parents and child-care providers—can play a huge role in turning this unacceptable situation around. Not long ago, just thinking about this new way for librarians to give young kids a leg up on learning got me feeling pretty optimistic about the future.

And then I made the mistake of picking up my phone. I was curious to find out how many librarians were actually using this potentially life-shaping technique. “May I please speak to the children's librarian?” I asked a library receptionist in Connecticut. “What do you mean the children's librarian?” a voice answered peevishly. “We don't have one.”

Next, I called a library in Illinois. “Neither of the children's librarians is here,” I was informed. Never mind that it was the middle of a weekday afternoon. I pressed on: “Is there someone else in the children's section that I can talk to?” “No,” he replied, “there's no one.”

But my luck quickly turned. A librarian at a branch of the Los Angeles Public Library said, yes, of course she knew what dialogic reading was, and in fact the library was training its volunteers to use it.

The rest of my calls weren't so encouraging. I talked to librarians in 10 states: one each in Virginia, Montana, Michigan, Massachusetts, Alaska, Tennessee, Colorado, Ohio, California, and Illinois. Eight of the 10 librarians I spoke to had never heard of dialogic reading. Only two, including one at the Parma-Snow Branch Library in Ohio, were actively training volunteers in the technique.

Our cover story is an attempt to spread the word about this exciting, innovative tool. Librarians carry the banner for so much that is good in this nation—the defense of the First Amendment and the right to privacy, for starters. It would be a shame if you passed up this opportunity to help endow the youngest Americans with the skills they need to learn. Then it wouldn't be only our newborns shedding tears. It would be all of us.

Rick Margolis
News and Features Editor
rmargolis@reedbusiness.com

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