Description
- Subject Area: Children’s Literacy
- Type: Workshop
- Length: 10 hours (1.5 days)
- Organisers: First5Forever (State Library of Queensland)
- Presenters: Michelle Swales & Kylie Webb
- Format: 1.5 day workshop with presentations and practical activities
- Date: 8/3/2017 & 9/3/2017
This 1.5-day workshop delves into the importance of the first 5 years of a child’s life. The presenters discussed the statistical data relevant to children of this age group, brain development of the first 5 years, emergent literacy, strategies for programming, learning how to engage with the parents, collaborating with the community and professional networking.
Although this workshop had hands on activities sprinkled throughout, it was certainly more theory based.
The reason why I attended this session was because it was being offered through work and I hadn’t at this point had any professional training with regards to the F5F sessions that the library was required to facilitate. I also needed to attend this day and a half of training, before I could attend the more practical workshop of Libraries, Literacy and Little Ones which I was going to attend later in the year.
I also wanted to gain a solid foundation on those critical first 5 years for children and how as library staff we can contribute to their literacy growth.
This session was important for all Brisbane library staff to attend, because we are providing daily F5F children’s literacy sessions, so it is important for us to gain a basic knowledge of children’s literacy.
Some topics of discussion were just a refresh on my knowledge, but some were interesting and useful to gain a greater understanding about e.g. children’s brain development. The included practical activities helped to reinforce some of the theory that was discussed and helped to bring forth ideas and conversations from other participants.
Although there were several other staff from Brisbane libraries attending, there were other staff from Queensland public library services at the workshop. This presented networking opportunities, which is always great to hear what other libraries are doing with regards to their children’s programming.
When children’s literacy programs are such a fundamental activity to public libraries today, training workshop such as this one are very important to help staff gain the skills required to deliver them.
