Segue Supports Family Literacy Book Take-Away

By: Jill Marie

This month I had the chance to serve the Segue/CF community in a unique way. With three days of family conferences occurring during the last week of January, I devised a way to help increase family literacy (an important component of increasing all students' achievement in reading and writing) by setting up a SEGUE SUPPORTS FAMILY LITERACY BOOK TAKE-AWAY display in the Media Arts Center. It included helpful tips and information for increasing family literacy. Families who passed through to participate in RIDE's Survey Works were invited to visit the table, choose books to take home with them, ask questions, as well as receive information about the local public libraries and get an application for a library card.

This project involved multiple stages of preparation. I first had to inventory the library, going through each section to identify and pull out books that were either age-inappropriate for our Segue Scholars, or titles of which we had many duplicate copies. I then wrote up the list of information to display on a poster accompanying the table, had it translated into spanish by our awesome Family Engagement Coordinator, Mrs. Morel, then had it printed it on handouts so that our families could reference the information at home. Ms. Hernandez, Ms. Neal and I managed to send almost every family who visited for conferences home with an average of seven or eight books to add to their home libraries and share with their family members. 

This project was both fulfilling and productive. It allowed for the clearing of some space in the library, thus furthering our goal of making sure our book collection is truly serving the needs of our scholars. It also gave us a chance to provide books in the homes of many families who might only have had a few, if any, to begin with. The more printed materials at home, the more reading will occur there. Kids who see their parents reading are more likely to want to read at home, which directly and positively impacts their levels of overall academic achievement. It also gives students a chance to both increase their skills, while at the same time helping their family members who struggle as readers themselves. One of our suggestions was to have the students read to those family members who may not be able to read well themselves. As a reading-specialist in training, this project gave me the perfect opportunity to put theory into practice; furthermore, it was personally fulfilling to be able to serve the Central Falls community as a whole. 

The Book Take-Away Table