Needs addressed:
This branch library serves a college, university neighborhood which attracts international students and their families. This weekly story-hour was designed to provide a welcoming atmosphere as well as a concentrated exposure to English through picture books, stories and songs.

Target audience:
Neighborhood Chinese speaking children and their caretakers.

Community partners and their roles:

• Chinese American Alliance helped publicize the program
• English Perfect wrote in support of the program
• Literacy Volunteers of America wrote in support of the program and helped publicize the program.

Specific activities:

• 18 weekly pre-school story hour programs were held which included showing a videotape of a classic work of children’s literature; exposing children to a big book version of the same work and distributing paperback copies of the book for home use. An interpreter translated the program and provided language instruction.

Staffing:

• Library Staff - 80 hours
• Interpreter - 41 hours

Costs:

• Purchased Services – (Interpreter) $451
• Supplies and Materials - $4,636
• Equipment - $4,964

The library provided publicity for the program and helped in the distribution of that publicity.

Evaluation:

• Quantitative Measures –statistics kept on number of programs, number of workshop participants, number of materials circulated, and number of materials distributed.

Changes/recommendations:

• This program could be easily replicated with any foreign-language population targeted. Selection of an enthusiastic interpreter with a love of children’s literature is a key to success.
• Programming must be flexible to address the range of language abilities of audience.
• Selection of materials with regard to the amount of new and difficult vocabulary introduced is important.

1. Services to Foreign Language Speaking Families
2. Parent/Preschool Programs
3. Parent Education

Last modified on February 29, 2000/djr
URL: http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/parchld/Albany.htm