Early Literacy

Libraries have the opportunity and obligation to guide and enrich all Americans by helping prepare children for reading and learning success. Libraries must continue to be strident advocates and community leaders for emergent literacy in all populations, especially children.

Research shows that children learn foundational pre-reading and other literacy skills long before they enter school. During young learners’ early years, libraries are a vital resource for shaping and advancing emergent literacy for both children and their caregivers. In policy and practice, American libraries need to support young children so they continually grow as proficient and prolific readers, learners, and citizens. Libraries must foster and advance current emergent literacy research, programs that help parents and caregivers understand the importance of early reading experiences and model how to provide them, and outreach to child care facilities and schools where emergent literacy experiences can be expanded and the role of the library reinforced.

Libraries increase their value within communities through public advocacy for emergent literacy. The productive relationships that children, parents and other caregivers form with their local libraries are a cornerstone of our democratic society. An investment in emergent literacy can have long-term rewards for our nation’s libraries by promoting and supporting literacy and learning that secure our civil liberties.

Because of the importance of this professional calling, librarians need to devote even more attention and resources to our role in emergent literacy.


Family Literacy

Parents are important contributors to children’s reading success. No institution is better positioned than libraries to partner with parents and provide information and professional guidance to effectively develop emergent literacy in children. Through our focus on family literacy, libraries can become a partner with parents, helping children develop a love for reading along with important reading, discovery, and learning skills.

Recent research conclusively shows that reading aloud to children is the single best way to develop reading readiness. I believe that libraries must continue to find ways to reach out to parents and encourage them to read aloud to their children, as well as engage in our many library-based literacy activities. Many libraries face circumstances that may limit the resources they have to expand and enhance literacy programs and services. However, as professionals we must not limit our imagination and innovative strategies to find ways to fulfill our important role in family literacy. I support more initiatives like:

• ALSC’s Born to Read,

• Additional opportunities for professional development for librarians on the front line of literacy, who have direct contact and impact on parents and families, and

• A focus on more outside funding for family literacy efforts and advocacy.

Adult Literacy

We are in a unique position where libraries have the opportunity to set the tone for all literacy initiatives in the future. We are in a position to change lives. We are one of the major social institutions for change (along with schools and churches) and equal access. No matter how limited the resources, or small the step, every library in America must become involved with adult literacy on some level. If collaborations are to be made in a community, make them. If no opportunity for collaboration exists, create it. Equal energy must be devoted to adults and children. If an adult can not pick up a newspaper or read an informational flyer sent home, then their children are less likely to participate in the educational opportunities we are pushing so hard with our emergent literacy programs. Library schools, in addition to teaching professionals about data management, reference, youth services, and other direct patron services, must include offerings of adult literacy issues. If patrons can not read, they certainly can not use our online catalogs, secure information concerning their physical and financial well being, or participate in the development of their children’s reading habits. Family literacy and emergent literacy efforts are predicated upon the assumption of adults who are literate. As professionals, and as a profession, it is our responsibility to insure the foundation is sound. Adult Literacy must be included in all discussions of literacy that ALA is undertaking. The likelihood that children will grow up literate is directly related to whether their parents can read and write. Almost one in four American adults has low literacy skills. Low Literacy levels can be found in every community, including those with a high percentage of college educated adults. Low Literacy individuals function daily without their neighbors or colleagues knowing. Unfortunately we only track those who are undeserved, marginalized or isolated. If parents can’t read or write, they are less likely to help children with homework, have a library card for family members, or even feel comfortable bringing their children to a library for storytimes and other early literacy programs.

Libraries are uniquely positioned to improve the lives of adults—and hence the future of children—by collaborating with human service agencies, educational institutions and diverse literacy programs to improve adult literacy. Librarians can contribute expertise and experience and libraries can offer materials and software to support adults as they learn traditional and emerging literacy skills. We can offer a welcoming environment, along with space where trained tutors can guide and facilitate learners with structured and open learning sessions.

As adults succeed, we can encourage them through campaigns like:

• BuildLiteracy.org that use the energy and synergy of partnerships to promote literacy, and

• PLA’s The Smartest Card @ your library, which helps people understand and appreciate all the ways they can use a library card for personal advancement and enjoyment.


Information Literacy (IL)

ALA’s pioneering research, educational and political initiatives, and scholarly publications have defined, described, promoted, and assessed information literacy competencies. ALA divisions like AASL and ACRL continue to model how library professionals use their own expertise to partner within the profession and collaborate with others outside our association to take leadership roles in preparing all Americans to be information literate in the knowledge age. Our success with IL initiatives and the respect we have won globally have called us to be international leaders in promoting literacy for all people- especially underserved, marginalized, oppressed, and isolated populations.

As emerging technologies, global communication, and sophisticated knowledge creation exponentially redefine what it means to be literate, ALA has been and must continue to be a leader in articulating the standards that measure, guide, and advance IL.

As educators, researchers, and advocates, ALA librarians have led local, national, and international efforts to prepare all people to better access, evaluate, use, and appreciate information from various media in ways that exemplify and promote the basic human right and democratic principle that all people should have the opportunity to be lifelong, independent, fully literate learners and citizens.

Librarians have helped the public to understand that libraries are much more than repositories of information. The 21st century library is a pathway to information and knowledge for diverse patrons using digital and traditional media. Librarians must be educated and empowered to professionally serve society in these new capacities.

Literacy is an issue for all Americans. ALA has a central leadership role to play in helping our nation advance our literacy and welcome emerging literacies of the digital age.
 

Early Literacy Research

Lawrence J. Schweinhart, The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40 (Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 2004)

Richard C. Anderson, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Judith A. Scott, Ian A. G. Wilkinson, Becoming A Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading (Champaign-Urbana, IL: Center for the Study of Reading, 1985)

Betty Hart and Todd Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing, 1996)

Paul Chance, “Speaking of Differences,” Phi Delta Kappan, March 1997, pp. 506-7.

Jerry West, Kristin Denton, Elvira Germino-Hausken, America’s Kindergartners: Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99, Fall 1998, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, NCES 2000-070 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2000).

Family Literacy Research

National Center for Family Literacy Literacy Facts & Figures (Louisville, KY, http://www.famlit.org/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=2996)