Circletime Kids Featured Teacher of the Month

Lupine Bybee Miller

I have been a children’s librarian for over five years.  I work in a small public library in a community that has a large number of immigrant and refugee populations, the majority of whom are from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, China and Vietnam.  As the children’s librarian, my work involves early literacy education for both the children directly and their parents/caregivers.  A large part of this is story time, a weekly half hour activity for children ages 0-5 that includes reading books, telling stories and singing songs and doing rhymes together.  It sounds like a rollicking good time, right?  Well, it is! But it is more than that.  Story time is a valuable experience for children to learn early literacy skills, that is, skills that are instrumental in preparing a child to learn to read.   It also gives parents and caregivers ideas for how to encourage these skills in their own home during the rest of the week.

When planning story time, I choose books that are appealing for a large group (not too long, illustrations that can be seen from afar) but that also help me to illustrate early literacy skills.  While, I rarely specifically say, “This book has lots of rhymes and helps you learn phonological awareness kids!” I do emphasize the skill.  For example: “Do you hear how cat and rat rhyme? These words sound the same, don’t they?”  or “Do you think you could retell the story when you get home? It’s always fun to retell the story to each other during the week.” Books that have a repeating refrain are also great for getting the kids involved in the story.  I often talk about  ways to incorporate the story (or song) into everyday life.  I love to share the great success I have had with the book Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman at home with my toddler and singing the refrain of the book while we pick up toys.  This makes clean up more fun and also ties the book into real life.  We talk about Mr Gilly, the trashman, a lot in our house!

I also try to choose books that have diverse characters and I love books that have non-English words in them.  I find that kids of all backgrounds love the idea that there are different words for the same thing.  For those kids who do speak other languages in the home, sharing the words of their language gives them a sense of pride.  One day, while during our regular opening song, “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” I suggested we do it next in Somali (which I had just recently learned), the Somali moms laughed but when I started doing it, the look of delight on their faces and their children’s faces was priceless!  

That many of the children I see are from homes where the parents are non-native English speakers is also a big consideration when planning story times and also when talking with the parents outside of story  time.  One thing I always emphasize is that English is not the only answer when it comes to early literacy.  Reading, singing, asking questions and telling stories in the native language is just as valuable and maybe even more so.  Remember, early literacy is not about learning English, but about learning how words are put together, how a story goes (a beginning, middle and end) and enjoying it.  Their language and culture are valuable, it creates a bond between parent and child, gives them pride in who they are and prepares them for school and learning to read.

Some of my favorite story time books that promote early literacy skills, cultural appreciation and work well with a group of diverse ages are:

• Say Hello! by Rachel Isadora
• Let’s Play in the Forest by Carmen Rueda
• Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Brown
• The Barking Mouse by Antonio Sacre
• The Peace Book by Todd Parr