Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) offers storytimes and other early literacy programs to meet the goal of kindergarten readiness. Currently 40% of children entering Columbus City Schools, the largest school system served by CML, are assessed as not ready. In response, CML launched the Ready to Read Corps in 6 target communities in late 2009. Based on Every Child Ready to Read @Your Library, and featuring early literacy workshops targeted to low income parents and caregivers, staff worked intensively reaching parents at WIC offices, Job & Family Services sites, and food pantries. After 5 years of implementation of the one contact model, evaluation failed to show movement in the target children’s kindergarten assessment scores. In January, CML moved away from the “one and done” workshop model to a 12 visit home visitation model based on Read it Again-PreK. Rather than introduce multiple skills and practices that are overwhelming to many parents, the new model is based on repetition of fewer explicit, book based early literacy skills.

Eight staff work fulltime making 12 home visits per family in 6 target communities to low income parents with children ages birth-5. Age appropriate book lessons for the parent are centered on 4 key areas of early literacy: initial sounds, rhyming, letter knowledge and vocabulary. The focus is repetition of these 4 skills which are directly linked to kindergarten readiness and later passage of the 3rd grade Ohio Achievement Test in reading. During each visit, the child receives a copy of the book featured in the lesson, and parents are assigned homework to practice in between. Staff administer standardized assessments to measure and monitor changes in early literacy behaviors in both parents and children throughout the 12 month period. Assessments include the Home Literacy Environment Scale (HLE), the Get Ready to Read (GRTR) and more. Evaluation will provide information which allows CML to make changes to the program to enhance its effectiveness and to assess the impact of the program on the participating parents and their children.

In 3 months, 162 children are enrolled (goal of 200) and 245 home visits have been completed. For the first time, Corps staff are using a fidelity scale (observation checklist) to ensure that each staff member is administering the essential parts of the program consistently. While there are fairly equal numbers of babies, toddlers and preschoolers, 25% of participants are Spanish-speaking families. Interest and commitment are strong in the Latino community for this type of program. The biggest challenge so far has been full parent engagement with the homework practice expected between visits. After the first visit, many parents admitted they did not complete the homework, which included reading the book regularly with their child. However, by the second book lesson, a larger number of parents completed the homework. One parent surprised staff by using post-it notes to document what their child said about specific pages. Another used post-it notes to tally the number of times she read the assigned nursery rhyme book to her child. The first review of evaluation results is scheduled after 6 months, in June, and an assessment will happen at 12 months. To complement this home visitation program, families who do not meet eligibility requirements will be able to participate in the same book lessons at all 21 branch locations on a drop in basis beginning in May.