For parents who did not have experience doing interactive activities when they were children, this time allows them to complete the activity once just for themselves. When an activity is fun, as the Story Kits are, parents as well as children want their own chance to cut paper, scatter glitter, use paste and play with the Story Kit. This preparation time also allows the librarian to explain that the end product is not the goal. The parents need to understand that if their children make a less than perfect book, mask, or other item, that is OK. The purpose of the Story Kit is the performance of the activity, not the product of the activity.

When the group reconvenes as parents and children together, the librarian will take on the helper role and let each parent lead their own child through the book and activity. The person implementing the Story Kit can offer assistance by answering questions and providing materials to the families. The librarian implementing the Story Kit will become a facilitator and mediator, enabling the parent to be the authority to the child.

Story Kits provide a teaching role through which to increase the parents' learning
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There is a learning bonus for the parents in taking a teaching role. Using information in a variety of ways improves retention of that information. Retention improves with each additional mode of communication.

The "Transfer of Training Chart" shows that "We Learn and Retain:
10% of what we read
20 % of what we hear
30 % of what we see
50 % of what we both see and hear
70 % of what is discussed with others
80 % of what we experience personally
95 % of what we TEACH someone else." (Glaser 1966)

Since the Story Kits involve all of the listed experiences for the parent-teacher, use of the Story Kits can increase their skills. This fact may motivate the librarian implementing the Story Kits to agree to the role of facilitator.

Story Kits are based on reciprocal learning and teaching
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Learning has additional impact for both individuals when it is shared between a parent and a child. Learning is enhanced when it takes place within a social context such as furnished by the interaction of parents and children. The fact that parents and children are mutually experiencing a Story Kit increases the intensity of the learning furnished by that Story Kit (Auerbach 1989). Although, the traditional educational system is based on one directional learning with the teacher teaching the children, this adult to child directionality of interaction is not essential. A two-way support system has also been shown effective. In fact, children reading to parents benefit as much as those who have parents reading to them" (Auerbach 1989). Story Kits are implemented so that the parents and children work together. The experience of the Story Kits is social, interactive, and reciprocal.

Story Kits provide extension activities through which learning can transfer from the instructional setting to the home setting
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Learning has additional impact when it is on going. It is effective to "extend emerging literacy skills by embedding learning within families' everyday literacy practices and interactions, even if their purposes or circumstances are different than those of formal school based learning contexts" (Gal and Stoudt 1995). The Story Kits initiate learning activities that can continue when the family leaves the library. Through the related books and the extension activities included with each Story Kit families can extend the learning from the library setting to the home. Conversation reinforces learning. Therefore, families who talk about what they have done on the way home and continue extended activities will learn more. Certainly, families who read more books will also learn more.

Story Kits provide meaningful activities connected to high quality literature
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The activities presented in the Story Kits are both literature and literacy based. The books used in the Story Kits are high quality children's literature. Each picture book is well written and beautifully illustrated. The illustrations are integral to the text thus providing contextual clues for those learning to read. The double media of picture books enhances enjoyment as well as comprehension. In comparison with chapter books or novels, picture books are short. This makes them more suitable to the time period of a program and less daunting to new readers (Bloem and Padak 1996). Some of the books chosen are wordless books. These books can encourage parents to "read" to their children without using written text, while still using language skills. These books encourage those who do not read well or do not read English well to tell the story in their own way. All the books were chosen because they discuss topics and themes of interest to both children and adults. Among the titles of the Story Kits are several that present different cultures. The books and activities were chosen to support the library missions highlighted in the section "Why would a library use them?"

The activities developed to accompany the books are based on reading strategies that promote the literacy skills of both parents and children. The activities were developed to interest both parents and children. The activities are built to be appealing and fun, but with solid educational underpinnings. The facilitative method used to implement the Story Kits increases the meaning for the adults. During the parent preparation period, the parents become acquainted with the reading strategy. During the implementation period, the parents become the teachers of their children using that reading strategy. They are aware of the educational meaning of the activity. They understand how the activity will increase their child's learning. Therefore the activity is not perceived as peripheral, unimportant or mere "busy work."

Story Kits support a strengths model of learning
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It may seem to have more impact to state goals negatively, but statements using negative phrases such as "overcome" or "conquer" illustrate a deficit model. Deficit models do not show respect for the capabilities of the participant families. The deficit model allows a superior attitude to exist that will interfere with the families' learning while they participate and eventually drive families away from participation. Families who participate in a Story Kit session have already demonstrated by their presence that they are interested in reading and learning. They have shown that they want to join in a reading activity organized by the library. Using the strengths model, they are increasing their own reading experiences. Using the deficit model, they are fighting illiteracy. The preparation of the parent to take the teaching role enhances his or her ability to complete the activity confidently. That parent participant is using his or her own literacy skills to enhance the learning experiences of his or her family, not preventing the school failure of the child.

Further, the interaction of the Story Kits builds on the interpersonal strengths of the parent-child pairing. The parent will take the teaching role, but the pair will help each other complete the activity. Interpersonal communication is enhanced by the participation in the Story Kit activity, not created by that participation. Perhaps the parent-child pair will use their native language rather than English to complete the Story Kit activity. This is not a problem. The strengths model recognizes that they are reinforcing their own learning by using the language in which they are most comfortable. The Story Kits are not an English lesson. Such second language participants would be applying their own cultural values to the experience of the Story Kit, not overcoming cultural differences. When "emphasis is placed on what can be done and what can be shared rather than on what is not done or what is not shared, children and adults can develop ways of being together in which they stretch, learn, and profit from one another (Tizard, Schofield and Hewison 1982).

Story Kits support the educational objectives stated in Bloom's taxonomy
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Briefly, Bloom and his co-writers divided learning objectives into five categories in the cognitive domain. These categories progressively demonstrate higher objectives in learning. The first objective is knowledge. As a simplified example, the Story Kit "Grandfather Tang's Story" presents the characters of fox fairies in a Chinese folktale. When the parents and children learn that, they will have accumulated a previously unknown fact. This knowledge of fact is the first objective. Comprehension is the next objective. When the participants understand that the fox fairy is a mythical shape-changing creature, they have achieved comprehension. The third objective is application. In the Story Kits, the fox fairies are used in the activity to illustrate the use of shapes. When the parents and their child use the tangrams to make shapes that resemble animals they have applied what they learned. The two final objectives are analysis and synthesis. Each Story Kit includes evaluation sheets for the participants to assess their experience. When they report both what they have enjoyed or what they have not enjoyed, they have analyzed the information. Synthesis, or the creative application of what has been learned, may take place during the extension activity. If they change the activity to suit their own wishes, they will have synthesized it. Perhaps they will have advanced some other learning goal through the experience of the Story Kit, thereby also achieving synthesis. (Bloom and Krathwohl 1956). For additional information on how to incorporate Bloom's Taxonomy, click here.

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