Family Programming at the Public Library --
Story Kits
"I find literacy such a potentially powerful tool for connecting generations, to help adults interact joyfully with their children, and to help children find ways to connect to the worlds of experience that their elders have brought from another place and another time." (Weinstein-Shr 1995) |
Introduction
Story. What a great word. It resonates with the memory of times listening to a grandfather describe life in the old country. It suggests tales about the one that got away. It hints at anecdotes remembered with a smile from childhood. Stories are part of what libraries package and make available to their customers. These days, stories in the library take many shapes, from audio books, to videos, to storytellers, and back again to books. The Illinois State Library Literacy Office, through a grant to Laura Bercovitz at the Adult Learning Resource Center, developed the Story Kits to package stories as a program activity that adults and children can do together.
What is a Story Kit?
A Story Kit is a packaged, participatory program activity for parents and children to do together. The Story Kits are based on children's literature and focused on reading strategies. One Story Kit provides materials for a library to implement a literature-based, literacy activity for family groups. Parent-child pairs complete the activity itself within the facilitated group. I use the widest definition possible for the terms "family" and "parents," to include foster families, blended families, grandparents caring for children and other non-traditional groups living together. The Story Kits are inclusive activities that can be used by any groups of adult-child pairs. However, the Story Kits are not intended for use with groups composed only of children or only of adults. If the adults and children who participate in the Story Kit activity live in the same household, home extension activities can enhance their experience with the Story Kits.
Each Story Kit is composed of a plastic container approximately three feet long by two feet deep by two feet wide. This bin contains multiple copies (25 - 30) of one children's literature title. Some Story Kits contain 15 copies of the same title in English and 15 in Spanish. The Story Kits contain some of the materials required to complete the activity, such as scissors, markers, paste and paper. In addition, each Story Kit contains a Facilitator's Guide. "Each Facilitator's Guide provides an in-depth framework describing how to plan for and implement the family activity." (Bercovitz 1999) This Guide explains how to do the activity step by step, what additional materials need to be gathered and what staff is needed to facilitate the activity. The Facilitator's Guide lists the expected educational outcomes, the staff responsibilities and roles and provides evaluation strategies. This online Library Facilitator's Guide includes that information and adds additional information to suit the needs of librarians. A print copy of the Library Facilitator's Guide is also in each Story Kit.