Christchurch City Libraries ‘Ready for Reading’

Librarians and teachers working together to strengthen literacy opportunities for a group of marginalised preschoolers

Abstract

This paper reports on the experiences of the Evaluation Team, comprised of experienced librarians from the Christchurch City Libraries and primary teacher educators (from Canterbury University) as they planned and implemented interventions working with the children of teen mothers (one marginalised cohort within a wider study). In particular it focuses on the Christchurch City Libraries’ (CCL) use of the Ready for Reading kit (R4R) to provide an intervention for a group of non-library users. It explores the diversity of strengths within the Research Evaluation Team and describes the challenges faced, and resilience required as they focused on motivating non-library using parents to support their children’s literacy development. Strengths of a multidisciplinary team are explored and how the ingredients of community connections and passion for literacy, together with clear knowledge of the reading process, were needed to develop interventions that would meet the needs of the target groups by supporting children’s transition into school.