Using Your Local Library PDF.pdf - Circulation User

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Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 1 Early Literacy Tip Tuesday December 8th – Using Your Local Library Hi everyone and welcome back to our last installment of our Early Literacy Tip Tuesday video series. This past few months we have discussed The Five Practices of Early Literacy and ways that we can incorporate them into each stage of our children’s lives to help them become better lifelong learners. For this final video, I want to recap those Five Practices and talk about ways to use your local library and have a literacy friendly home. The Five Practices of Early Literacy are Talking, Singing, Reading, Writing, and Play. In their own ways, each practice helps young children learn to communicate better, develop literacy skills such as storytelling and vocabulary, develop social skills and develop many other skills that they will need all throughout their life. Providing young children with this base of knowledge ensure academic success and can help grow a genuine interest for learning. Consider using some of the tips or adding activities we talked about in previous videos to your life with your baby, toddler, or preschooler. Because many people associate literacy with the library, I also wanted to include some helpful tips about how to use your local library to help your Early Literacy journey! In many cities, it is free to get a library card at the library in the district you pay taxes to. If you’re in between towns or districts and you’re not sure what library your taxes go to, check your property taxes, or visit one of your local libraries! We are always more than happy to help you find your home library. Once you have a library card, the possibilities are endless. Start enjoying your library’s collection of materials and if you want to branch out from there, it’s easy to! Many libraries are part of larger systems of libraries that can share books and materials with each other. This means, if we don’t have the book that you’re looking for, chances are pretty good that we’ll be able to borrow it from another library and have it sent right to us so you don’t have to travel for it. Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 2 If you want to explore a bit though, you can use your library card at those other libraries too! For example, if you have a Tremont District Library card, your card will also work at the Morton Public Library, the Pekin Public Library, all of the Peoria Libraries and many more. You can check out books at any library and then return them at any library too! Librarians aren’t picky about their patrons, and we won’t be jealous if you explore other libraries. That’s what our system is for! Many libraries offer baby bounce, storytime, and Story Hour groups. Right now, there aren’t many that meet in person, but lots of libraries offer pre-recorded videos of storytime books and songs, or meet over zoom. These groups are great for enjoying some entertainment and socializing at the same time. Most libraries also allow people to join even if they aren’t patrons of that specific library, so you have lots of options for a storytime group that is right for you and your child. Keep an eye out on the social media channels of libraries near you to see what storytime programs they are offering this winter and upcoming spring. Another program that many libraries offer is the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten Program. This program is exactly what it sounds like, read 1,000 books with your child before they enter kindergarten. It’s ran a little bit differently at each library, but many use a log system where you track how many books you’ve read and then you receive prizes every hundred or every few hundred books. Here at Tremont Library we have our “bubble wall” where each 1,000BBK participant gets a little nametag on a bubble. Each 100 books you read, you get to move up a bubble, and if you complete the challenge you get to stay on our finishers bubble! This program is a great go-at-your-own pace program that you can start as early as you want and play as many times as you want. Here at Tremont, we also host a summer version of 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten called 100 Books this Summer! Again, parents with children under 5 are invited to try to read as many books as they can in return for fun prizes. Lizzi Ogle – Tremont District Library 3 There are so many ways your local library can help you and your child grow and learn. Start by just visiting and see what yours offers. Finally, I want to leave you with one more tool. This is a Home Literacy Environment checklist. Before school, and before the library, literacy starts at home. Use this checklist to see how literacy friendly your home is and find ways to improve! Having access to different types of materials and being encouraged to learn from an early age will help your child soar in life. Alright, thank you so much for joining me for this video series this fall. I have really enjoyed pulling together tips and activities to help you and your little ones and I hope you all enjoy trying them out as well. To see what else Tremont District Library can offer your family, check out our website. Bye friends! Sources: https://www.readingrockets.org/article/home-literacy-environment-checklist