Storybook SCCLD Early Learning Play Spaces
Santa Clara County Library District
Innovation Synopsis
The Santa Clara County Library District is inspiring early literacy starting at birth, by constructing interactive, early learning spaces at our seven community libraries. Dubbed Storybook SCCLD, children ages 0-10 and their caregivers are immersed in distinct worlds reflecting each community, filled with colorful characters, interactive learning activities, letters, sight words, shapes, numbers, and concepts, with features specifically designed for children to develop the skills needed to become successful learners. Each location welcomes all families to explore the many different areas and features for children to practice fine and gross motor skills, reading nooks for quiet play, vehicles and playhouses for imaginative play, a toddler slide for active play, and interactive sensory areas dedicated to babies and pre-walking children. The overall goal is to promote the five principles of Every Child Ready to Read: talking, singing, reading, writing and playing.
Challenge/Opportunity
Challenge: Help every child become a successful reader by inspiring them to learn the natural way, through play. In Santa Clara County, an average of only 60% of 3rd graders met or exceeded the reading ELA requirements in 2024/25 (https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/). This number was as low as 40% in some areas.
Storybook SCCLD is specifically designed to help children of all abilities to develop a love of reading and become successful learners. Not every child or caregiver is a reader, and those residents are probably not using the library. In addition, many babies and toddlers are not receiving the stimulation they need to become successful early learners.
Storybook SCCLD gives every family a reason to visit the library and provides the opportunities for every child to develop the skills they need to be successful in school. When children play in Storybook SCCLD, they are immersed in words, surrounded by books, and the activities and features encourage learning—masked as play.
Key Elements of Innovation
Rooted in making reading enjoyable for all children, these permanent additions to our Children’s spaces inspire a lifetime of interest in reading and exploring. Each of our community libraries has its own local theme that is tied to their community. The spaces are designed to encourage sensory play to develop cognitive and fine motor skills, imaginative play to develop social, communication and problem-solving skills, active play to build coordination needed to sit, hold a book, turn a page, and track a line of text, and quiet play to learn to focus, and build comprehension and decoding skills.
This multi-year project is designed and developed with experts in museum quality interactive spaces, Luci, Ravenswood Studio, and Group 4 Architecture. These are fully immersive early learning spaces with every element selected to develop specific skills babies and children need to become successful learners.
Achieved Outcomes
Results from the first six openings were very positive:
* Between 12 and 19% library gate count increase in months following openings
* Increase in new library cardholders
* New families visiting the libraries and staying longer
* More families staying after programs to visit the play space
* Families of reluctant readers (adults and children) feel welcome and the library is a destination
Families are touring multiple sites to experience each space and SCCLD has created a Storybook SCCLD Passport available in English and Spanish, to encourage repeat visits. Each library has its own stamp of their Storybook SCCLD robot to stamp in the passport book. As residents return to the library, Storybook SCCLD is a reason for some to visit more often and has created the library as a destination for others who did not previously utilize the library. Total visitation continues to climb with a 6% increase in overall visitors year over year.
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