Early Literacy: Designing Meaningful and Impactful Library Programs for Children and Caregivers

Early literacy library programming plays a vital role in helping young children and their caregivers build the skills they need to thrive from birth through age five. However, meaningful programs begin with understanding your community, recognizing both strengths and barriers that shape families’ access to library services. 

In this practical, idea-filled course, librarian Becky Russell shares a strengths-based approach to connecting with caregivers, identifying local needs, and designing programs and collections that truly make an impact. Participants will explore creative early literacy programming strategies, learn how to build strong community partnerships, and discover simple ways to gather and use data to demonstrate their library’s value. 

Course participants can expect to learn:

• Build trusting relationships with early literacy caregivers
• Identify and address barriers to access in their communities
• Develop practical ideas and strategies for early literacy programming materials, and school readiness that directly reflect the identified needs of their library’s young children and caregivers
• Brainstorm ideas for meaningful partnerships with local organizations
• Gather and use data to evaluate impact and strengthen services

By the end of the course, you’ll leave with actionable tools, fresh ideas, and greater confidence to design inclusive, responsive early literacy services that support families and strengthen your community. 

Course Description:

This course will provide weekly readings, practical application activities, and discussion forums for the sharing of ideas and experiences. The instructor will also provide feedback as well as essential resources, and useful tips and techniques that can be applied in your library. 

Additionally, this four-week course will include two interactive 75-minute online sessions: 

• Wednesday, 4/29 @10:00 am Pacific Time (11:00 am MST, 12:00 pm CST, 1:00 pm EST) 
• Tuesday, 5/12 @11:00 am Pacific Time (12:00 pm MST, 1:00 pm CST, 2:00 pm EST) 

Please make every effort to ensure that you are able to attend these two meetings before enrolling in the course. If this is not possible, archived recordings will be made available. 

Course Outline: When you log in to the Infopeople online learning site, you will see weekly modules with these topics: 

• Week 1: Identifying Early Literacy Caregivers of Your Community and Their Needs
  • Determine who your community’s early literacy caregivers and youth are.
  • Learn strategies to identify the needs of these caregivers.
  • Library-aligned ideas for early literacy programming ideas based on identified needs.
     
• Week 2: Analyzing Your Library’s Barriers to Access for Early Literacy Caregivers and Children
  • Pinpoint barriers to access for early literacy caregivers in your community and library.
  • Reflect upon your strengths to reduce those barriers and develop programs that meet the needs of your community’s early literacy caregivers and children.
     
• Week 3: Early Literacy Program and Material Ideas
  • Gain and share practical ideas for interactive and community-aligned
  • Early Literacy programming and materials for caregivers and young learners.
  • Learn and share ideas on engaging passive programming, school readiness and more.
     
• Week 4: Strategies for Collecting Data and Sharing Evidence of Impact
  • Gain ideas to collect data as evidence of your impact on programs you want to offer. Reflect upon and discuss how this data can help you determine the effectiveness of your Early Literacy Programming.

Time Required: To complete this course, you can expect to spend 2 ½ hours per week, for a total of ten course hours. Each week's module contains various options for assignments, discussions, or online meetings. You can choose the options most relevant to your work and interests. Although you can work on each module at your own pace, at any hour of the day or night, it is recommended that you complete each week's work within that week to stay in sync with other learners.  

 Who Should Take This Course: Library Staff who want to design early literacy programming for children and their caregivers.

Do you work in a rural or tribal library? If so, you may be eligible for a course fee waiver for this course. This Infopeople course has up to five no-cost seats allocated for rural or tribal libraries. Fill out a fee waiver request, and if a no-cost seat is available you will be notified via email.