Observing and Interacting With Families of the Children in Your Setting

As most of you know, my setting is at The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Library.  On Saturday, May 25, 2013, the library sponsored a “School Closing Library Fun Day”. The entire day was open to the community.  Not only was there an opportunity for the families and children to have fun on the rides and other entertainment but they were also able to participate in story hour, arts and craft and other activities. This “Fun Day”, is a jump start for the Reading and Literacy Program. 

During the morning activities, I observed and interacted with the “Allen Family”.  Michelle Allen is 6 and she was with her mother Mrs. Sharon Allen.  I asked Michelle if she was attending this affair for the rides, arts and crafts or reading program.  Michelle stated that she wanted to be here because she loves to read and she always checks out books from the library. Michelle said that when she read she gets a chance to read about exciting places she would like to one day travel. This made Michelle’s mother very happy because she said that she always try and get her children to read.  Mrs. Allen stated that she is always talking to her children about reading because she feels that if you can’t read, you can’t do anything.  She stated that anytime the library put on these special programs she always attend because it give her a chance to meet authors, see different books and just be exposed to reading.  She stated that reading is a wonderful pastime for her and allows her to see the world in other people eyes.  She stated that they will stay for the arts and craft activity but the main event they will stay for will the story hour because they both love listening to other people read.

During the story hour some of the parents got involved by dressing up for the kids while reading them a story.  I spoke to some of the parents and they were very happy to be able to attend and participate in the program.  One of the parents (Mrs. Blackmon) said that she feels like she is missing out when she doesn’t get involved.  She said that she volunteers at least once a week because she feels that literature is so important to kids and they need to realize that they can have fun with reading. Another parent said that she feel awful because she didn’t have time to participate because she has other children.  But, she is going to try and make time during the summer to become more involved.

Later in the day I had the opportunity to talk with the Director of Library about parent involvement and how important it was to her.  The director said that parent involvement is very important but she sometime think that it is not so important to the parents and they don’t always take it serious.  Some parents think that because they work that they are excused from their obligation of parental involvement.  But the library sets up activities for parents during the day and the night in order to accommodate all the families.  The director stated that there are many ways for parents to be involved.  She stated that when they have special programs or story hour, the parent are allowed to observe or participate.  The parents can volunteer for story hour or they can volunteer when they children go on field trips.  During the summer, story hour can be a continuation story that will require field trips so that the children can get the whole picture of the story and this is when the parents are really needed.  I told the director that I am very encouraged with this topic that I have chosen (Families and Children Working Together for Literacy) and asked her if she could give me some information on what I could do to discuss this topic with parents.  She stated that I could start an advocacy group for parental involvement or I could do workshops and tell the parents how to manage being an involved parent and working.  During these workshops I could prepare and give out helpful information for the parents.

One observation that I noticed on this day was how the director, her staff, the parents and children worked with each other.  You could see that the director and staff had put a lot of work into getting ready for this day.  But, you could also see just by observing that the parents and their children had worked hard to make this day a success just by the way they interacted with each other.  All responsibilities were shared with each other as a group. This was a long day but a very successful one.  Over 500 people attended this day-long event.  I am looking forward to my next visit and to the information that the director is always ready to share with me about experiences, suggestions and ideas about programs to promote reading and literacy.