Why Libraries Offer Story Hours
In an era of growing skepticism over the value of public libraries, it’s important for librarians to be able to justify every program we offer. A study released by National Bureau of Economics (NBER) reveals that boys under the age of four visit the library less, own fewer books, and attend fewer story hours than girls of the same ages. Authors, Kevin Milligan and Michael Baker, also point out that parents read books, tell stories, and sing songs more often with daughters than with sons.
Of course, librarians have always known that library visits and story hours are cognitively beneficial to young children. We just haven’t been too great about advertising WHY we provide free story hours.
In a nutshell, we model literacy skills to the parents who attend story hours with their children. We teach guardians to be more comfortable at home interacting with either sons or daughters in developmentally-appropriate ways that will build early literacy, i.e., with songs, fingerplays, chants, and, of course, quality kiddie lit.
Most librarians are probably familiar with Every Child Ready to Read, which offers brochures and presentations that help us justify storytimes, and inform parents about the importance of early literacy skills. However, this new NBER study (Warning! PDF takes long time to load.)gives us another important reason to share with city councils why libraries need to continue providing story hours to babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Spread the word!
