Kindergarten Ready Grant Projects 2019-2020

Partners: United Way of South Central Idaho, Northside Head Start, First Baptist Preschool

Project:

Targeting low-income and Spanish-speaking families, the following components helped educate parents and help them prepare their children for kindergarten: Ready! for Kindergarten workshops in English and Spanish; Spanish storytimes (both at the library and through outreach); early literacy kits for checkout, English and Spanish; library card outreach to Spanish-speaking families, low-income families, and out-of-district families whose fees were waived by sponsorships; vision and hearing screenings during storytimes. The library worked with community partners to identify and reach target families.

Best Practices:

1. Ultimately what ended up being most effective was the Spanish storytime and Spanish READY! classes. Several of those parents got cards. However, others were still afraid to checkout books for fear that they would damage them. We even offered to pay for any damaged books through the grant, but couldn’t break that barrier.
2. The literacy kits were a huge hit. Although it was difficult to get surveys returned, most of the people who checked out kits, checked out multiple kits. Return customers was a measure of success for us. We created one kit and met with kindergarten and first grade teachers to get input. They were able to tell us the things they would like to see in students who would be attending their classes. A couple of the things they mentioned was to have children be able to write their own names, have sight word recognition, and scissor skills. Those things were added to our kit.
3. The READY! classes were also successful. Having 18 Spanish-speaking families impacted through the READY! program was great. Creating a connection with those families and having them attend Spanish story time and/or check out library books was an added bonus. Most of the people in the READY! class were new to the library. We know that getting people in the library building itself is the first hurdle for many of our Latino families. Being able to offer the program for free was a huge draw. We did not have as much success drawing in low income English-speaking families. Yet…
4. I still believe that attending parent nights at preschools, daycares, Head Starts, and doing pop up story times is the way to reach families who are not already library patrons. Covid-19 really put a strain on those plans. I think we will continue to do this once we are able to, but we plan to have more of a performance at these events so that we can draw and hold the attention of the children, while other staff talk to parents.

Biggest Success:

During the grant cycle, I think we were most successful in reaching our Latino community. Weekly Spanish story times both in the library and offsite at a day care outside our service area, enabled us to impact children who did not frequent our library previously.

Caveats:

1. We really wanted to have pop-up story times. We ran into a lot of barriers to this. We felt certain that the apartment complexes would allow us to have story times. This was actually one of our biggest disappointments. We had hoped to have an outside story time in the spring at one particular complex. We were told they don’t allow solicitation. We explained that we weren’t selling anything, and that no one was under any obligation. Still they would not allow it. Another complex was one where rent was based on income. They have families as well as elderly people. We had hoped to use their community room. We were told that although their families might like it, their older residents would not appreciate it. We have not completely given up on this idea, but I would suggest making a lot of contact before assuming others will be as excited about the library offering a free story time as you are.
2. Creating quality literacy kits, like the ones we envisioned, took a LOT of time. We really wanted them to be attractive to both the parents and the children. We wanted them to be a tool for parents to use as their child’s first teacher. Although the instructional inserts that we created specifically for each kit was time consuming, it is the one thing we have had the most positive feedback from. Still, I would encourage including a guide, I would just warn that you will need to set aside a large amount of time.

Biggest Challenge:

Our biggest challenge was having to shut down and reimagine our program. We were unable to get out in the community. This was a big part of our promotional plan. Reaching your target audience is always a challenge. Reaching your target Audience during a pandemic takes this to a whole new level.

Evaluation:

• READY! classes: post program surveys, and attendance
• Spanish story time attendance, a comparison Spanish Language materials checkout to previous year
• Literacy Kits: Surveys for literacy kits, circulation of literacy kits and ,
• Offsite visits: Redeemed tickets for free library book

What we discovered is that parents most appreciate learning how to play and interact with their children to encourage learning. Most didn’t realize how simple some activities can be to have a lasting impact. Based on feedback, parents also appreciated having things ready to go. One parent said, “This takes the pressure off having to come up with something on your own when under stress.”

Child Care Partner-Ticket for Parents

Literacy Kits: List of Topics

Literacy Kits: Sample of Inventory

Literacy Kit: Bugs Insert (see photo of kit below)

Literacy Kit Survey English     Spanish

Linda Mecham
Director

lmecham@cityofjerome.org

Partners: Salmon School District Child Development Center, EICAP Head Start, Kids Creek Early Education Center, Adventure Academy Early Learning Center

Project:

Grant funds were used to support the work of a Kindergarten Readiness Coordinator, who provided a biweekly outreach program at local preschools focused on early literacy-STEM connections. In addition to the outreach program, the library added an enhanced storytime on Saturday mornings, targeting working parents; developed check-out kits for early learning providers with built-in curriculum; expanded early learning tools available for stay-and-play; and hosted collaborative family events with preschool partners throughout the year. While the onset of COVID-19 prevented the completion of some grant goals, the Coordinator spent time during the shut-down inventorying the children’s book collection and creating themed book lists to be made available to care providers and the general public (this project is still in progress), as well as hosting a twice-weekly virtual storytime that has since been commuted to storytime in the park. In addition, grant funds for events and outreach materials were redirected to developing a four-week series of take-home kits for pre-readers, each of which featured five themed activities aligned with the five early literacy practices. An 8-10 minute video accompanied each kit, including demonstrations and helpful tips for caregivers.

Best Practices:

1. Preschool Visitation Model: Conducting regular outreach visits to preschool that include both storytime and activities has not only been a great way to build relationships with providers and children, but also to build our credibility as a provider of services and education to young children. The inclusion of activities allows for modeling of teaching strategies, demonstrates how library equipment can be integrated in the preschool environment and gives our often overwhelmed providers a chance to step back and reflect. It also broadens childrens associations with the library visit: it is not just a time where they must “sit down and be quiet for the visitor,” but where they get to engage their senses and discover new things. Planning and prepping these outreaches can be a big front-end investment, but as more partner sites are brought on board and the same activity can be facilitated with multiple groups of children, a larger impact is yielded from a fixed amount of prep time and the return on investment increases.
2. Digital Documentation of Activities: It was a specific goal of our library to develop materials and strategies that would allow us to sustain grant activities after the grant period ended. A key piece of this was documenting every outreach activity, including the necessary materials, prep and a rough “script” or outline for the activity. We committed to making this a priority, even when timelines were tight; in the inevitable circumstance where there wasn’t enough time for an activity to be written up completely before it was facilitated, the write-up would be finished after the outreach cycle was over. In addition, facilitating the activities repeatedly at multiple sites allowed the Kindergarten Readiness Coordinator to reflect and tweak aspects of the activity between each visit, so these tweaks were always written into the documentation as well. Where possible, we extended this practice to one-off events and activities. All of this information will now live as a permanent resource for programs staff for future years.
3. Clear Bags for Kits: This is a little thing but it makes a big difference! We’ve noticed how kids and parents respond differently to take-home and outreach materials that are distributed in clear bags. Even clear signage does not always get people’s attention but grabbing hands usually can’t resist ribbons or play-doh or craft materials they can clearly see in a bag. Subconsciously it seems that clear bags also signal to families that the item is there for them to take (same concept as open drawers and shelving).

Biggest Success:

I think we have profoundly expanded the community’s impression of the library as a provider of programs and resources for young children. In particular, we have seen an increase in the number and frequency of education and social service providers asking library staff for book recommendations, activity suggestions and physical resources to use with the children in their care. There is a distinct shift in the relationship with a provider when they begin reaching out to schedule outreach appointments, ask for resources or collaborate on projects – rather than it feeling like a one-way relationship where the library offers and we hope they say yes. The network of community contacts we’ve nurtured through this grant is a key piece of the infrastructure, in addition to the development of curriculum and other long-term resources, that should allow us to sustain the majority of these programs without (or with less) grant support because the time and energy needed to nurture those relationships, the knowledge of who to call for what and how to broach the subject (never underestimate in a small town) can now be put toward other things.

Caveats:

Relationship-building as an outreach strategy can be a double-edged sword. Particularly in a town such as ours, where social capital is critical and institutional trust is low, people often buy into a person before they buy into the organization where they come from. As the Kindergarten Readiness Coordinator, I am now the gatekeeper for our library’s relationship with many of our local care providers, children and parents in the same way that people who conducted outreach and kids programs before me often were. Similarly, I had to invest a lot of time and energy on earning providers’ trust, even though our library has a long history of collaborating with many of these organizations. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I think it is something on which libraries in communities of our size and/or with similar community cultures should critically reflect, and try to come up with solutions to address this issue that suit their unique needs. For us, one of the solutions we have looked at is training other staff members to conduct preschool programs and intentionally allowing them to fill in, not just as a substitute, but on a more regular basis to get people used to another face. We did this with success with Saturday Story Hour; I facilitated the first five storytimes but had the same staff member attend several as a “helper,” then she facilitated a couple with me as a helper, and then we began to alternate weeks.

Biggest Challenge:

Our greatest challenge remains engaging with our under-the-radar, in-home, not-necessarily-certified care providers in our community; who in turn serve many of our community’s most difficult to reach children. As Kindergarten Readiness Coordinator, I spent time during the grant period reaching out to individuals who I knew provided daycare out of their homes; it was my goal to begin visiting these locations on at least a monthly basis. As of mid-March, when our outreach program shut down, I had not succeeded. One provider with whom I successfully established a relationship cancelled on me four times. We’ve discussed the possibility that in-home providers may fear judgement or backlash from inviting a third-party provider into their space, similar to how certain parents worry about being unwelcome at storytime and other programs. This is a notion that takes time and hard work to challenge. One idea that we are considering in the future is expanding our focus from in-home providers to simply scheduling in-home outreach with parents willing to host in their yard, with their own children and a few of their children’s friends. This might allow us to reach and build trust with families who do not typically see the library as “their” space, provided we can identify the right person to bridge that gap in the first place.

Evaluation:

• Tracking number and attendance for all outreach and in-house programs
• Tracking circulation of early education check-out kits
• Tracking number of materials distributed for distribution programs
• Parent surveys stapled to take-home packets
• Mid-year and end-of-year survey for preschool providers participating in the outreach program
• Direct feedback from patrons

Some key findings:

• On mid-year and end-of-year surveys, preschool providers in the outreach program consistently “agreed” or “strongly agreed” the outreach program: helped their students develop early literacy skills; helped students to make connections between what they read and the world around them; and increased students’ awareness of and interest in the library.
• On mid-year and end-of-year surveys, preschool providers in the outreach program consistently “agreed” or “strongly agreed” the outreach program gave them ideas for activities they can do with their students and increased their awareness of books and educational resources available at the library.

Some outputs:

• 50 total Kindergarten Readiness bags distributed to Fall 2020 incoming kindergartners (see photo, right)
• 44 total outreach visits to 5 early learning centers, serving a total of 65 unique children, aged 3-5
• 258 take-home Family Activity Kits distributed over four weeks to families with children aged 2-6 (every kit made was taken), reaching an estimated 90-100 unique children
• 17 total Saturday Storytimes with peak attendance of 8 families / 14 kids
• 27 archived virtual storytime videos that are available publicly on our Youtube channel and Facebook page whenever families need
• 50 families and 8 local partners attended Preschool Outreach & Family Fun day co-hosted with Head Start Preschool

Website: http://salmonlibrary.org/kids-corner/

Provider Survey, Mid-year

Provider Survey, End-year

Refer a Friend to Storyhour

Library Card Outreach

Check-out Kits

Kit Labels

Kit Activity Cards

Lacing Activity (see photo below)

For copies of Preschool Outreach Monthly Activities, please contact Francesca.

Francesca Bessey
Programs Staff

Francesca.salmonmakers@gmail.com

Partner: Nampa School District, State Department of Education

Project:

The Nampa Public Library’s “Bilingual Kindergarten Readiness” project has two main components:

1. Pilot program at New Horizons Dual Language Magnet Preschool that provides students with bilingual take-home early learning backpacks filled with supplies and books. The classroom received 10 Kindergarten Readiness kits in a deposit collection for classroom use. Library staff visited each week for 8 weeks and taught an hour-long Kindergarten Readiness class.
2. Library Programs: Two Bilingual Kindergarten Readiness classes (an 8-week series) were offered at the library in both English and Spanish with one class in the morning and one class at night, along with the bilingual take-home backpacks for participants. Two bilingual educators assisted with the eight classes. Hot spots were circulated. 40 non-resident cards were funded during the grant period for families without cards, and kindergarten readiness stations have been created and will be rotated to encourage Stay and Play interaction in the library’s Story-Making area and are used during the bilingual classes. The library is working closely with the State Department of Education’s Migrant Education Coordinator and other partners to better reach Latino families and encourage participation in all these programs and services.

Best Practices:

1. The bilingual Kindergarten Readiness series of classes gave us a full hour to present meaningful content that focused on one or two related topics. Staff planned activities that let children practice skills related to one or two topics and stressed to the parents the importance of giving their child the opportunity to practice these skills at home by making the most of everyday activities and resources. By hosting this program series, we built trust with new patrons and accentuated the library as a helpful resource for their family.
2. Keep your Kindergarten Readiness (K.R.) classes simple, clear and to the point. It is important to get the main message across and to not overwhelm parents. Library staff need to be organized and focused with the kindergarten curriculum and know what those main points are. We integrated the main concepts in the classroom lessons with the themes in our Kindergarten Readiness (K.R.) kits so they reinforce each other.
3. Do an assessment of the kids at the start of the classes so you have a baseline and can see their improvement as the weeks go along. Initially, we had parents do the assessment with their own kids. Bad idea. It is better for staff to do the assessment with the child and have the parents watch. Parents were often too involved and over-rated their children, or worse, got mad at them for not knowing or doing something right. Parents need to see where their kids really are, not where they think they should be. Examples of the assessment includes things like cutting with scissors, writing their name, or saying the names of shapes and letters. We let parents know that kids did not have to be perfect or know everything, but some parents really wanted that for their kids. Also, with many families attending, the activities take longer, so having extra staff on hand is helpful, especially with the assessments.
4. Build up your Kindergarten Readiness kit collection to help families practice those good K.R. skills. Kits make it easy for parents/caregivers to know what skills or concepts that their preschoolers should know and the tools to practice the skills. It gives children and parents the opportunities to easily work together in a fun way that will make a difference once school starts. Have a list of the kit contents with pictures so parents (and circ staff) can easily know what is in the kit and what is missing.

Biggest Success:

Having so many bilingual families come and developing relationships with them was the best success. Sometimes the whole family would come, even the dads and grandparents, which was amazing to see the support of the kids with education. I would estimate that ¾ of the families were Latino. It was truly bilingual with an even amount of Spanish and English learning. Many English-only speaking families wanted their kids to learn Spanish. Having two amazing bilingual educators who have early childhood education in their background was essential for the success of the program.

Caveats:

1. Too much content. Trying to pack too much content into a single class or program. You can send home additional information or worksheets with families or let them know that if they are seeking more information to just ask. Give out homework as supplements. It seemed more important to get a strong basic idea across than trying to throw as much information as you can to see what would stick.
2. Too little planning time.  It’s important that the components you are presenting to your community are well thought out so they can be utilized as you hope they would. Quality programs take time; they aren’t thrown together.
3. Not having a clear vision or not having a clear vision outlined with deadlines or basic parts to be covered for all the different parts of your program before you begin working. This will be helpful to keep you and to anyone assisting you on track and working towards the same goals. An outline will also help with others who assist you to keep on track while having the flexibility to work in their own style.

Biggest Challenge:

The biggest challenge is trying to find the best way to organize information so it would be useful and easy to use in the future. There was a lot of trial and error with the kit organization and ordering. A staff member new to creating kits was assigned the kit component and creating a plan or outline for them was critical for helping them with the process. Also conversations with Material Services is essential for the kit cataloging including the necessity of having a kit content list and a price list for lost or damaged items. The K.R. kits contain two to three times as many items as other kits that we circulate, so it is important to have a list of contents that is easy for parents and circulation staff to make sure that all contents are accounted for.

Evaluation:

We started out with a pre-assessment survey for parents asking how capable their children were of completing certain tasks, then we had each child participate in a pre-assessment skills survey where parents watched their child demonstrate some of their skills.

We spoke with the teachers at the school (from which quite a few of our families were referred) about the lessons we had planned and any suggestions they could give us on content to cover that they noticed their students may struggle with.

Before and after lessons we had discussions with our bilingual educators, who also have backgrounds in early child education, about how lessons went and what they might recommend for future lessons that would make them go smoother or have a better impact.

In our kits there is a survey included asking parents about how using the kit went, what they liked best, and any recommendations for changes.

At the end of the program series there is a post assessment to compare the results with the pre-assessment skills survey, to see what kind of progress kids have made. We will also give out a post-assessment survey for parents.

Parent Workshop Flyer English     Spanish

Workshop Pre-Assessment Survey English     Spanish

Preschool Skills Pre-Assessment

Lesson Plans for Workshop Series (8 weeks)

Kit Contents

Kit List of Contents–Template

Kit Survey (English and Spanish)

Laura Abbott
Youth Services Manager

abbottl@cityofnampa.us

Partners: Nezperce Joint School District, Highland Joint School District, Peck Elementary School

Project:

The library district worked with educators in the schools and school districts listed above to develop early learning kits, focusing on specific skills identified by the teachers as critical to kindergarten readiness. The library district re-purposed materials in their story time kits, and used grant funds to purchase additional materials and books. Before closures due to COVID-19, library district branches promoted kits and library services at library programs and outreach events. Staff were given tools to better communicate with parents and caregivers about how to prepare their children for school. A marketing campaign was presented through local media advertising and on branch social media platforms.

Best Practices:

1. Having a broader array of educational materials for checkout that would be deemed non-traditional library items was a huge benefit to the appeal of the kits. Patrons were genuinely interested in the contents of each kit and the purpose they served. It made them very easy to market.
2. Encouraging staff to do word-of-mouth marketing about the kits whenever the opportunity arose helped create community awareness well beyond what we did in the media and online. It gave marketing a more personal touch and questions could be answered right away.
3. It helped to have staff brush up on kindergarten readiness, all it takes for a child to be ready to learn, and how libraries can help. It made for a solid in-house professional development opportunity and can be revisited frequently in the future to inspire other ideas. Similarly, the project was a nice way to build our relationship with partners and present the library as a stronger resource moving forward.

Biggest Success:

Once up and running, the response from patrons about the kits was very positive. I feel we included a good variety of materials and activities within the kits to encourage kindergarten readiness skills. Circulation was starting to pick up before the closure, with daycares and families checking out multiple kits. Programming that involved the kits had higher than average attendance when compared to other district programs. For these reasons, I would say that we met our goal of creating a range of kindergarten readiness resources that had a wide appeal with community members.

Caveats:

1. Have a firm strategy and timeline when engaging with partners. I will admit that we did not and it cost us some valuable time in implementing the project.
2. While a small project team has its benefits, it can quickly be exposed by happenings out of your control. I would recommend assigning a larger number of people to the project team to help counter the unexpected. A team could consist of both staff members and volunteers, with tasks being divided up as appropriate.
3. Think broadly about logistics, and plan out even simple things. Consider the impact of ordering a large number of materials in a relatively short space of time. Map out all the small and minute tasks involved in putting together packaged materials for patron checkout.

Biggest Challenge:

There were several challenges along the way. We got off to a slow start with our partners in planning the kits. The district encountered some staff absences, which pulled members of the project team away for periods. Then, once things were finally underway and going well, COVID-19 forced us to pull the kits. Given that the COVID-19 shutdown was a necessary measure, the biggest challenge was probably the staff absences. We were grateful for our partners’ involvement and cannot fault them for time constraints. We should have better prepared in the event that it might happen. The staff absences came as a genuine surprise, however, and had far more of an impact on the project. It also exposed our project team as not being big enough for the task. In all, I was probably overly optimistic of what the number of people we had could achieve in the timeline we laid out. Lesson learned for next time.

Evaluation:

We had the same survey in paper form and online. A paper copy was included with every kit as part of a promotional brochure. QR codes and links were included for those who preferred to respond online.

Key findings:

Survey responses indicated that most families were either satisfied or very satisfied with the kits, and likely or very likely to check the kits out again. General feedback pointed towards improvements for individual kits. The average age of the children who used the kits was five; the spread was from 9 months to 8 years old, suggesting an interest in the kits beyond the target kindergarten readiness age of 4 years old.

Kindergarten Readiness Kits Flyer

Talking Points for Kits

List of all kits

Foxes Kit: Cover

Foxes Kit: Inside Cover

Foxes Kit: List

Kit Survey and Brochure

Lisa Curnett
Interim Director

lpuckett@prld.org