Why We Offer an Early Literacy Calendar

When I got my job here in Missouri back in the summer of 2011, I had just attended the 2011 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans; I was bubbling over with enthusiasm, especially for early literacy. That energy, my now-boss says, came across in my interview. I was so gung-ho in my interview, in fact, I even used the phrase, "Even if you don't hire me, you have to do this."

I was referring to creating an early literacy calendar.

It's now over a year and a half later, and my library district does indeed have an early literacy calendar. Each month, we create and make available a calendar full of simple suggestions for early literacy activities that caregivers and their children can do almost anywhere--non-intimidating activities that build pre-reading skills. The activities are based around the ECRR five practices with some math thrown in. The children's staff across the library district take turns filling in the monthly templates I've created; each branch is tasked with populating a calendar with activities every 9 months. For that relatively small amount of work on the part of our children's staff, the benefit to our communities is significant.

We hand out early literacy calendars at our baby, twos, and preschool programs. We have copies of the calendar available at the check-out desk. We share the calendars with local preschools and day cares, encouraging them to make photocopies for the parents of their charges. We post a link to the current calendar on our website, and I have started sharing the pdf on our Library Foundation's new blog. We pass it out when we register pre-readers for summer reading. When workloads and budgets allow, I want our graphic design guy to rework the look so we can make the calendars available at grocery stores and doctors' offices.

If dreams came true, our early literacy calendars would end up in the hands of every caregiver in our county who spends time with a pre-reader. We librarians know how seemingly simple activities can have a great impact--and we often have thousands of potential activities bouncing around our brains, ready to meet the needs of our communities. Now those activities and tips can reach a wider audience. That's why we offer an early literacy calendar.