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"Mills, J. Elizabeth"
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Early Literacy in Library Storytimes, Part 2
Within the peer-reviewed literature, there is a shortage of experimental and quasi-experimental studies examining libraries’ impact on children’s early literacy development. Therefore, Project VIEWS2 (Valuable Initiatives in Early Learning That Work Successfully 2) used a quasi-experimental design to understand whether an intervention to train public library storytime providers in early literacy principles makes a difference in children’s early literacy skills. In the experimental group, comparisons of preintervention and postintervention data showed statistically significant increases in the early literacy behaviors of the providers and attendees in the experimental group. There were no significant changes in the early literacy behaviors of control group providers and their attendees. A purposeful focus on early literacy principles makes a difference in storytime programs and in early literacy behaviors when children attend storytime. This article examines the design and delivery of the intervention, its effects on the study population, and its implications for practice.
Journal Article
Learning about what is most important: incorporating values into the design of learning experiences
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to bring library practitioners and researchers together to develop two co-designed tools for helping library practitioners gain a more holistic understanding of families in underserved groups and identify their values with the goal of developing more relevant learning experiences for them. The co-designed tools were then tested with Master’s of Library and Information Science (MLIS) students at two universities, whose feedback yielded several valuable findings and informed revisions to the tools.
Design/methodology/approach
A participatory, design-based approach was used throughout the study, both with engaging library practitioners in the co-design of different tools and processes introduced in the Toolkit, and to help MLIS students and library practitioners test the tools and provide feedback on the tool revisions.
Findings
Students indicated that the tools helped them develop a deeper understanding of underserved groups and their values and gave the students the time and space to reflect on their understanding of the socio-cultural and value contexts of their communities and the values they hold.
Originality/value
This study can help libraries more effectively design strengths-based learning experiences that are meaningful and relevant to underserved groups and their values, particularly for children and families from underserved communities.
Journal Article
Encouraging, empowering, and educating: Informal educators, caregivers, and children as partners in computational thinking activities
Informal learning environments, such as libraries and museums, are key areas for supporting computational thinking (CT) with young children and their families. Educators in these environments are working to offer CT‐related experiences and activities for families of young children, often incorporating aspects of sociocultural learning such as scaffolding and dialogic practices. Because the parent/caregiver is typically present with their young child in these environments, there is an opportunity to provide them with CT information and support so that they can then actively engage in and encourage their child's CT learning, thereby extending their child's capabilities in a zone of proximal development. Previous research by Ohland et al. offers an initial framework of parental roles in CT experiences that serves as a foundation for this study's analysis of interviews with 18 libraries and museums from across the United States. The goal was to understand informal educators' goals for caregiver participation in CT activities with young children and their strategies for enabling caregivers to embody these different roles. Findings reveal that educators want caregivers to play a variety of roles with their child(ren) in these CT experiences. Furthermore, educators are implementing a variety of methods that explicitly encourage interaction, collaboration, and more. The connections between these goals and methods begin to build a model of caregiver encouragement, empowerment, and education in CT experiences in informal learning environments.
Journal Article
Welcoming Black Children into Literary Wildscapes: Wildness in African American Children's Picture Books
This essay confronts the dearth of picture books featuring African American children having immersive outdoor experiences and uses a close analysis of the few that exist to construct a literary framework of African American wildness that offers both a critical and creative understanding of these portrayals.
Journal Article
Early Literacy in Library Storytimes
Across the nation, librarians work with caregivers and children to encourage engagement in their early literacy programs. However, these early literacy programs that libraries provide have been left mostly undocumented by research, especially through quantitative methods. Valuable Initiatives in Early Learning that Work Successfully (VIEWS2) was designed to test new ways to measure the effectiveness of these early literacy programs for young children (birth to kindergarten), leveraging a mixed methods, quasi-experimental design. Using two innovative tools, researchers collected data at 120 public library storytimes in the first year of research, observing approximately 1,440 children ranging from birth to 60 months of age. Analysis of year-one data showed a correlation between the early literacy content of the storytime program and children’s outcomes in terms of early literacy behaviors. These findings demonstrate that young children who attend public library storytimes are responding to the early literacy content in the storytime programs.
Journal Article
Where Are We Now? The Evolving Use of New Media with Young Children in Libraries
The topic of using new media with young children (zero to five years old) in the library has been a focus of conversations in the field for several years. An Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) survey, administered to children’s library staff from across the United States in 2014, provided a foundation for these conversations by revealing how library staff were using new media with young children and their families. The results of the survey, which revealed widespread inclusion of new media in library spaces, along with the innovative work of library staff and community needs, spurred profession-wide initiatives to apply research-based practices to how libraries support the literacy and media needs of families.
Journal Article
To Tech or Not to Tech? The Debate about Technology, Young Children, and the Library
Recent discussions on the ALSC electronic discussion list signaled a need for a better understanding of the research around young children and technology. The controversy and debate around using technology with young children has been going on for several years. While research is emerging in this area for libraries, there is still not a huge body of research out there and data do not yet exist at this point that answer some of our most basic questions of how technology use will affect children long term. However, new research in this area is emerging regularly so it is important to have opportunities to explore the findings that do exist. Ultimately, we see that a majority of families are already using technology with young children so libraries can play an important role by providing guidance on what to use and how to use it effectively with their young child. We wanted to share the content of our panel presentation with readers to further disseminate the research as well as some recommendations for effective practices that can impact and enhance practice, especially when working with families.
Journal Article
Libraries as Learning Labs in a Digital Age: A Youth Services Conference in an LIS Classroom
In the face of a changing landscape of youth services, LIS education can push the field of librarianship forward by adopting research-based frameworks that are directly applicable to the profession. We combined the Connected Learning framework with Radical Change theory and Outcome-Based Planning and Evaluation (OBPE) to establish the structure and content for a brand-new culminating course in the children's and youth services track at the University of Washington Information School. We taught the course in Spring 2015 using a conference-like model based on the late Dr. Eliza T. Dresang's teaching plan. Innovative delivery methods engaged both online and residential students, deliberately seeking to change boundaries, change perspectives, and change formats in how programs for digital-age children and youth are planned, delivered, and evaluated. This paper highlights how applying a radical approach to teaching that focuses on hands-on learning connects practice with pedagogy, and provides takeaways that offer a new model for LIS educational approaches.
Journal Article
