Needs addressed:
Parents are their children’s first and most influential teachers. These kits were designed to help parents become more effective in teaching their preschoolers basic concepts and preparing them for kindergarten.

Target audience:
Children ages 4 and 5 and their parents. Since 40.1% of this population is Hispanic in this community, one-third of the kits were provided in Spanish.

Community partners and their roles:

• Freeport Public Schools - assisted with developing concept; networked with school staff and PTA Council; hosted library staff visits to orientation meeting at Early Childhood Center; introduced reading/learning kits to 40 bilingual parents
• Freeport Council of PTA’s - provided opportunity for library staff to meet with members of PTA; hosted library staff visit at Early Childhood Center PTA meeting; introduced reading/learning kits to 25 bilingual parents
• Freeport Memorial Library - met with community partners to develop list of concepts to be included in kits; ordered, processed and inventoried materials for circulation; produced and distributed flyers; made presentations at two school district meetings and numerous library programs to publicize kits; developed, distributed and collected user surveys.

Specific activities:

• 35 theme related reading/learning kits were available for circulation at the library
• kits were publicized at school district meetings and library programs; 500 flyers were also distributed
• user surveys accompanied each kit and were used to evaluate project

Staffing:

• Library Staff: Children’s Librarian – 5 hours per week; Clerical Staff – 2 hours per week;
  Public Relations Department – 1 hour per week

Costs:

• Supplies and Materials - $4,500
  Cost of services of all library staff , flyers and surveys was absorbed by the library.

Evaluation:

• Quantitative – Circulation statistics for kits (27 over a 2 month period)
• Qualitative – User Surveys (Only 5 returned by final report date) All surveys had positive comments and good suggestions.

Changes/recommendations:

• Much more professional time was required than had been anticipated to select and hunt down appropriate materials. Time spent processing materials was also more than had been expected.
• Recommendation is to start on a smaller scale; developing fewer kits and putting them into circulation before developing others.

Categories of service:

1. Learning Kits
2. Kindergarten Readiness
3. Services to Foreign Speaking Families

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