Reading for Healthy Families

I just had a 2 day training from Steven Engelfried for Reading for Healthy Families (RFHF). This is an initiative that partners public libraries with Healthy Start-- a group that helps first time parents to get the tools they need to raise their children to be successful. The training was INTENSE, but really helpful and educating and entertaining-- I'm just not used to sitting for so long.
We started by learning what RFHF was, and how it works-- Joanne Contini used Russian nesting dolls to explain that the ECRR that the ALA developed, an is being used throughout the country is being passed down to trainers, to the more local trainers (like Steven) to the Librarians and Healthy Start workers (us), so we could teach the parents, so the parents can work with their children.

We learned about Healthy Start from the workers themselves in small groups- this was very helpful to me, because, while I know the idea behind healthy start from their website and hearing other librarians talk about it, I didn't know how they put their theories into practice. What a strenuous job they have!And what important work!

Then we jumped right into the training on the early literacy skills. We received binders full of information to share with families, to learn ourselves, and bags upon bags of books to give away, books to entice people to come to the library, and books and toys for us to use when we pass the information on to families.

Steven is a wonderful educator-- he presented the information as we would present it to the parents we'll work with, giving us tips and hints he has found helpful, and making sure we understood what we are being asked to teach. My favorite teaching tip he gave us-- which he repeated a few times, is to present the information to parents, and then ask them to "fast forward" to the time when their child is in first or second grade and presented with a text they haven't seen and asked to read it. After learning print awareness he discussed that children who have developed print awareness will be excited to learn what the text contains and will be willing to work through the tough process to decoding to have the book make sense. After we learned about vocabulary he asked us to fast forward to when the child encounters a rare word and after decoding us (using phonological awareness and letter knowledge) realizes they have heard the word before, even if they don't use it themselves.

I am very grateful that I am able to be trained in these early literacy skills, and I feel such a great responsibility to go out and "preach" this early literacy gospel to 15 families. Now I just have to figure out how to find them!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera at the training, so have no photos of the Salem Public Library (or their AWESOME discovery room-- seriously-- go check it out, it's like OMSI in the LIBRARY!)
Here's all my bags unpacked: