Slow Storytime
Regardless of whether this resembles your storytime style or not, it's a stereotype of the genre. Breaking that requires very intentional choices on your part and a narrative-shift on the part of your families.
Start by asking yourself:
What is my goal for storytime?
What do I want families to walk away feeling? thinking sharing? What are needs I'm noticing? Concerns families share?
If you're part of a team offering storytimes, discuss these questions as a group. Do you have different opinions? Where are you on the same page?
While there are no wrong answers, if you said your main goal was for families to have a love of books and reading, I'd ask you to push yourself a little. If you've always read at least 3 books for storytime, I'd ask you to think about what would happen if you didn't read any. That's right...no books! What would families experience? I'm not suggesting you read no books, just to shift that focus slightly.
Take a moment to picture prepping for a storytime, regardless of the age group (babies, toddler, preK, family) that had you pull 3 puppets or stuffies, 1 book, and 1 prop (scarves, shakers, parachute, etc). That's it!
A few years ago, a colleague and I, who had very different storytime styles, realized that both of us approached the program in the same way - little to no emphasis on books, creating moments of pause, focusing on conversation and play, and moving the focus away from us as presenters to our families. It clicked! We talked about what this was. Why did it work? Why had we done this?
We had storytimes that ranged from 20-100 participants, often families in the group were speaking another language at home, and many had limited experience with traditional storytimes. When we shifted to offering invitations to explore and play, our families could interact with their kids wherever they were. They were also empowered to continue the fun at home.
For example, we would put a few puppets in a bag. Depending on the age group, we'd give different clues about what was in the bag - maybe share a sound it makes, or a characteristic, then pull out the puppet. Maybe we'd sing a song about it, or it would just move around the room playing peek-a-book or saying Good morning! We'd hear kids ask their grownups if they could do that at home and caregivers would cheerfully say yes - it was accessible and reproducible.
Instead of library staff being entertainers, we were able to model what positive, playful interactions with kids look like. Grownups, rather than checking out when they walked in the door, knew that they were entering an easy space, nothing artificial or overproduced, but authentic and friendly.
Because the focus was on being present it didn't matter what we had planned. If the group was high energy, we could shift to more active movements then slowly wind down. If everyone was snuggly, we'd do more lapsit activities. And if we were all done, we finished, regardless of what time it was or what else we had in our bag.
The best part was that we had created accessible programming. At the beginning of storytime we let families know we were happy to see them, but realize that some days are hard and that's okay. We gave them the agency to make decisions that were best for their family. And families shared this with other families. They would encourage families who said their kid wasn't ready for storytime because they didn't know how to sit still to give it a try. "The librarian doesn't care!," they'd share gleefully.
So take a moment and imagine a different storytime. Slowing down makes space for yourself and your families.
Not sure how to get started? Contact Anna for a workshop or more individual coaching for your library.
Comments
Post a Comment