The You (PLAY) room, and Early Literacy in Ohio Libraries

I like that one of Constance Dickerson's main goals in writing the article "The Preschool Literacy and You (PLAY) room" was to motive other libraries to create a similar space, and demonstrate that it is possible to create a space like this on a budget.  After her library received a Museum and Library Services (LSTA) grant from the State Library of Ohio, they were able to create this early literacy space that incorporated Every Child Read to Read (ECRR) principles.  Dickerson encourages other libraries to seek out grant opportunities to fund a similar space, and also suggests ideas for low-cost substitutions as well.

The You (PLAY) room contains lots of features that make it a fun, interactive space.  A six-foot tree with "sunlight" lets children sit and read, and movable shelving and child-sized seating allows for smaller configurations of the space.  I like that, given that Dickerson lists the vendors she used, that libraries can pick and choose exact items that they would want in their own space, or just use her experience as inspiration to implement other creative early literacy features in their own space.

A quick visit to the Ohio Ready to Read website shows that Ohio libraries are pretty active in early literacy programming.  They have a blog links page maintained by some of their youth services librarians and branch libraries that are involved in early literacy activities, and a page of resources that helps librarians and other early literacy professionals understand and integrate ECRR literature into practice.