Arlington School & Family Magazine January 2015 | Page 10

District Programs

members are able to incorporate more challenging materials.
Some favorite books during the fall 2014 session were Leonardo
the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems, This is Not My Hat by Jon
Klassen, Open Very Carefully by Nick Bromley, and the ever
popular Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin.
Starting in 2015, iPads with educational apps and ebooks will
also be included in this experience to promote digital literacy
in the classroom.
These storytimes are also wonderful chances to introduce
students to important guests throughout the Arlington
community. In October, hundreds of children were
mesmerized by the city’s own firefighters, who took turns
reading books and singing songs about fire safety.
In an effort to increase the number of books the students
read every day, the library started a program called Little
Libraries in the fall of 2014. The Little Libraries are small
book collections circulated to all the centers as part of the
biweekly storytime visits. The goal of the program is to
make library books easily accessible for the childcare center
educators, who otherwise might be limited by a static
classroom collection or little time in which to visit the library
on their own. Hundreds of children have benefited from
these portable collections, which include titles on a variety
of topics.

Taking Storytime
Beyond the Walls
of the Library
Storytime is a great way to help young children discover the
many joys of books, as well as an opportunity to build early
literacy skills in a fun and engaging environment. While
many children are fortunate enough to attend storytime
at the library, there are many more who miss the chance
because they attend childcare while their parents are at work.
Recognizing that these children would also benefit from such
a program, the Arlington Public Library teamed up with
AISD Community-based childcare centers to bring biweekly
storytimes to the 3-4 year-old prekindergarten students at 15
schools across Arlington.
Thanks to generous funding from the Texas Literacy
Initiative Grant, children at these centers receive biweekly
visits from library programming staff who present fun and
engaging storytimes that incorporate songs, rhymes, puppets
and of course, books. As comprehension increases, staff
8 Arlington School & Family - January 2015

Along with these programs, childcare center students had
the opportunity in December to meet renowned author and
illustrator Will Hillenbrand at a private author visit. Leading
up to the event, Hillenbrand’s books, such as Spring is Here
and Off We Go! were shared in the classrooms. This helped
reinforce the power of the writing and illustrating process and
may have even inspired students to become future authors
and illustrators!
The entire reading experience has been enhanced by the
supportive AISD teachers who sing, dance and participate
with the students, to the great appreciation of the storytellers.
Although working with more than 1,000 students makes it
difficult to know them on a personal level, the children greet
library staff with continuous warmth and enthusiasm. A
few of the students have even gone so far as to scout out the
storytime leaders in their natural habitat at the public library
– a fun surprise for everyone.
The library continues to assess the early literacy needs of the
Arlington community and looks forward to future possibilities
with the childcare center partnerships. †