Managing Director, Programs & Partnerships Raising A Reader
What does it mean to be 'culturally responsive' and how do libraries include it in their work with families? This presentation will define cultural responsivity and investigate family engagement practices and tools that acknowledge and appreciate the home cultures of all families. Children’s books will be featured as an important tool to bridge the connection between libraries and families. Further, the poster will highlight Raising A Reader, a national family engagement and early literacy organization that supports families and inspires the development of literacy skills and a lifelong love for reading. Using a train-the-trainer model, turnkey materials, and culturally responsive children’s books, Raising A Reader builds the capacity of libraries in their approach to engage families within their local communities.
In partnership with library systems such as the Monroe County Library System (NY), San Mateo County Libraries (CA), the Wayne County Library (NC) and the King County Library System (WA), Raising A Reader has demonstrated positive results in changing family behaviors and increasing early literacy skills of young children. Case studies from selected library systems will be shared, including their approach to implementing a Raising A Reader program, utilizing diverse children’s books to engage families and evaluation data including anecdotes, statistics and charts showing pre/post program changes in family literacy routines.
This poster presentation will include illustrative examples of Raising A Reader’s approach to family engagement including photos of our library programming, charts and representations of evaluation data collected over 20+ years, depictions of diverse children’s books and sample materials.