FOPL has been investing in research on our members’ behalf. This week we will mail this report to all members and we are excited to share digital copies with the library community at large:
Preschool Early Literacy Programs in Public Libraries
By Drs. Shelley Stagg Peterson and Eunice Jang
Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
OISE/University of Toronto
FOPL funded this independent academic study that shows the role and impact of public library children’s storytelling programs. It’s a very positive study about the public library’s impact on our community’s kids for early literacy and school readiness! Who could argue with that! Story times aren’t merely fun, songs, dances, and games. Every parent invests in their children and public libraries play a key role.
Briefly, the report shows that your library’s story times improve school readiness, vocabulary development, motivation to read, narrative awareness, phonological awareness, and print awareness. Indeed these programs change children’s literacy behaviours at home and parent’s literacy interactions with their children. The report contains a number of important recommendations for you. As a core program of public libraries it is wonderful to have this piece of Ontario-based research to focus on building even greater success.
We also created an infographic about this research, “What happens during Story Time at the Public Library”. We hope you feel that this is good enough to post in your library for staff, parents, and your cardholders. Thank you to Susie Benes for a great job creating this internally.
- A French translation of this report will be available in the coming weeks and will be mailed to our FOPL French Caucus members and posted here.
- Additional copies of our infographic will be available at the OLA Super Conference.
- Online copies of the report are available as a PDF on the FOPL website in case you want to link to this from your library’s website or share it via e-mail or social media like Facebook and Twitter. Here is the URL: https://fopl.ca/?p=1623
- We also have jpeg and PDF copies of the infographic that can be printed to give to caregivers at story times or posted on your digital and social media presences. Here is the URL: https://fopl.ca/?p=2575
I hope you find this report
useful and worthy of sharing with staff, trustees and the public. It’s great to have an independent piece of academic research showing the positive value of what public libraries do every day for our communities.
Contact:
Stephen Abram, MLS
Executive Director, Federation of Ontario Public Libraries
sabram@fopl.ca
Cel: 416-669-4855
FOPL: 416-395-0746