Ideas, Resources, & Research, MGOL August 2021 Newsletter

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Table of Contents
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A Note From Betsy

News & Ideas
Mother Goose Day

Research
The Value of MGOL and MGOL-like Programs
Research and Evaluation

Book Recommendations
The Orphans of Davenport

Suggestions from Librarians
Changing the World Through Peek-a-Boo
I Was a Screen-Time Expert. Then, Corona Virus...

Resources
Too Small to Fail Free Bundles
A Very Odd Video
MGOL YouTube Playlist

Training Opportunities
MGOL Webinars
Using Library Programs to Build Executive Function Skills, a new online course with MGOL!

Rhyme of the Month
Developmental Tip of the Month

A NOTE FROM BETSY

Although we had hoped the world would return to normal, it is clear as this school year starts that we are nowhere near "normal." Because of all the COVID variants, it is unlikely that we will ever fully return to the way we used to hold programs. Libraries that are doing on-site programs are either offering them outdoors or offering hybrid programs with an option of attending in person or online.

Because of this, I would like to thank the many librarians who have permitted me to share their virtual MGOL programs, whether offered in their homes when COVID first started on in their libraries without visitors once they were allowed to return to work.(https://mgol.net/mgol-at-home/)

My hope is that watching the different presentation styles and materials used by children's librarians around the country will inspire and encourage those who have not yet taken the plunge into virtual programming to do so. This free resource is constantly expanding, so please feel free to continue to send links to your programs to mayadiamantcohen@gmail.com.

My grandson is turned one this month and I am so grateful for videochats! I have been able to sing to him, to do fingerplays, share rhymes and puppet greetings, and simply have fun with him online. He recognizes my voice and my face; my heart lights up when he smiles as he sees me. He has even started to walk!

When digital media first started growing, we were afraid of the effect screen time would have on babies. When The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) was recommending no screen time for children under age two, librarian Cen Campbell and Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation were championing "joint media engagement." Too often, they were seeing parents handing cell phones and iPads to babies so they could entertain themselves while the parents ignored them and spoke with their friends or did other things. Cen and Lisa felt it was important to share the message that media with young children works if it is in conjunction with a person they love and involves talking, singing or playing together. Since parents were ignoring the "no screens for children under age two", they wanted explore ways that digital media for babies could be beneficial rather than detrimental.

In 2014, Dr. Dimitri Christakis (an author of the original AAP statement against screen time for young children) published a paper, “Interactive Media Use at Younger Than the Age of 2 Years: Time to Rethink the American Academy of Pediatrics Guidline?” distinguishing between the negative effects of passive television viewing and positive results of app play between child and parent that promote reactivity, interactivity, tailorability, progressiveness, and the promotion of joint attention. By 2018, the official AAP statement was changed to allow media use that involved joint media engagement, saying that "kids 18 months and younger should be limited to screen time for video chat only"

With COVID, video chat was the only way for some families (such as mine) to keep in touch with each other. I am so grateful that the technology exists, and that children's librarians are still serving as media mentors by letting parents know how digital media can be used to benefit their babies. Tracy Karbel from Michigan forwarded a New York Times article to me about this, with a toolbox of coping strategies that I have shared in the newsletter's "research" section.

Just like MGOL programs, virtual programming should not be a performance. Librarians should be facilitators whose main goal is to facilitate positive interactions between parents/caregivers and the young children in their lives. We model developmentally appropriate ways to talk, sing, share books and play, while providing developmental tips that explain simply why the activities are beneficial and how parents can replicate them at home. In these crazy times, children's librarians are playing an important role by supporting families and showing them how parents can use the materials they have at hand in order to playfully help with their children's development.

If you have ideas to share about more ways librarians can enrich virtual programs, please let me know and I will be happy to share you ideas in upcoming newsletters.

Happy September!

Betsy

May 1 is Mother Goose Day!

All around the county, people are celebrating Mother Goose. Have a look at some of these cool videos, and start planning for your celebration next year!
(Click on the pictures to see the videos)

She's back, she's back, the queen of quack.... She's on the Loose, it's Mother Goose!

The Value of MGOL and MGOL-like Programs

A paper presented at The Early Literacy Research Symposium, International Reading Association Annual Conference, in Chicago, April 29-May 5 2006 examines the impact of a range of an Australian early literacy program (Baby Bounce) for 0-2 year old children initiated by public libraries in diverse geographic and socio economic communities in South Australia. Many of the elements are also present in MGOL programs, so it is particularly interesting. The paper was organized around the following research questions:

In what ways do literacy programs for 0-2 year old children respond to local communities in remote and urban areas?
How do literacy programs for 0-2 year olds adapt to meet the developmental requirements of the age group?
What was the impact of family literacy programs for 0-2 year old children with regard to phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and oral comprehension?
Are there changes in family literacy practices as a result of the programs?
In what ways to particular parent groups perceive the content, processes and attitudes espoused by the program?

Here are some of the findings:

"There was overwhelming mutual enjoyment in the Baby Bounce programs. The programs encouraged ‘live’ language which is different to television and listening to recorded songs and chants. The programs were quick paced and had lots of actions, clapping, music created by the group, plus some CD recorded songs to add variety. There was no didactic teaching in the program just excellent modelling of how to interact and play with babies."

"For library staff the Baby Bounce programs have lead to an increase in library use and membership. The library is a great place to socialise. For many of the parents the socialising with other parents and baby-to-baby socialising was the key to the program’s success."

"Singing and chanting is engaging as it requires attending to the rhythm, rhyme, melody, timing, words and meaning. As well the action songs require movement and coordination while also connecting emotionally with the music and words. In even in the simplest of songs, the whole brain and body are engaged. The singing of songs and use of actions are important early symbolic representations of meaning and many of the early songs and rhymes are repeated again and again in different forms in picture books and early literacy texts."

To find our more, read the paper:

BABY BOUNCE: THE LITTLE BIG BOOK CLUB WAY TO BEGIN LITERACY FOR CHILDREN 0-2 YEARS - Susan Hill

Research and Evaluation

Talking about evaluation, I have always wanted some type of evaluation of the impact that MGOL has on parents, children, and the librarians facilitating the program. This is difficulty to do since the program has morphed in so many ways, but I recently attended a webinar with PLA's Project Outcome and wondered if that might provide a vehicle for evaluating MGOL. Thanks to Deborah Dutcher of New Hampshire, there is now an online survey at https://www.projectoutcome.org/en/59357. Feel free to use these questions with your own MGOL participants.

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Below are a few other articles I found particularly interesting:

Learn about the difference in storytime participation between newcomers and regular attendees:
Learning the library: The work of public library storytime participants - by Rosamund Stooke

Even though it targets the learning of older children, this article describes a study design for determining how the flannel board can be used to enlarge vocabulary, increase vocabulary, deepen vocabulary, and ice break vocabulary. If you are a fan of flannel boards, this may be of interest to you.
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING FLANNEL BOARD IN MASTERING VOCABULARY FOR THE FIFTH YEAR STUDENT OF
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN THE SCHOOL YEAR 2006-2007 - by Edi Saputra

There is a connection between music and empathy; people who are empathetic are sensitive to "abrasive music" and are particularly responsive to familiar music. Empathy in music listening is associated with activitiy in prefrontal and reward areas of the brain. To discover more, read:
Embodied Listening and Musical Empathy: Perspectives from Mirror Neuron Research - Choi Deblieck, Zachary Wallmark

The goal of "Participatory Learning and You" project is "to foster a more participatory culture in which every person has the skills, access, knowledge, and support they need in order to meaningfully participate in the new media landscape. This report elaborates on the Five Principles for Participatory Learning and shares on-the-ground insights from 11 Los Angeles-based teachers who oriented their classrooms accordingly. These teachers’ journeys show what happens when theory meets practice – they describe triumphs and discoveries, identify challenges in implementing these principles within current classrooms, and offer suggestions for fostering participatory learning environments."
Reilly, E., Vartabedian, V., Felt, L.J., & Jenkins, H. (2012). PLAY! (Participatory Learning And You!). -by Laurel Felt

Book Recommendations

Nurturing Breeds Intelligence

A new book, The Orphans of Davenport by Marilyn Brookwood (Liveright, 2021) describes early research that proved the importance of early nurturing for brain development. In July 1934, two toddlers at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home were evaluated by psychologist Harold Skeels. Using the terminology of the era, Skeels used IQ tests to identify "imbeciles," "morons," and "idiots" in order to make room at the orphanage by shuttling them off to institutions for the "feebleminded."
While individual scores of 90 to 109 were considered average intelligence, 13-month-old CD and 17-month-old BD only scored 46 and 35. Since the facilities for feebleminded children were overcrowded, the toddlers were moved to an institution for feebleminded adults, the Woodward State Hospital for Epileptics and School for the Feebleminded.
After nine months of being cared for by adult women with mental ages of 5 to 9 years, Skeels found CD and BD "alert, attractive, playful, [behaving] like any normal toddlers," according to his colleague, Marie Skodak. When given IQ tests after 18 months of living there, CDS IQ score had jumped to 95 and BD's jumped to 93. With "normal" IQ's the girls were returned to Davenport. They were adopted within months, and when "located again in their late 20's both were married with children in apparently stable, loving households."
Skeels and colleagues at the University of Iowa's Iowa Child Welfare Research Station developed a body of work in the 1930's "finding that neglected children placed in caring and stimulating environments could recover tens of IQ points; that institutional neglect eroded, but preschool improved children's IQ scores, and that institutionalized babies born to low-IQ parents and adopted in the first months of infancy scored in the good or superior range on later IQ tests."
It took 30 years before the Iowa group's "clinical findings and their implications - that nurture, as well as nature, plays a pivotal role in the development of children's intelligence - were at last recognized and celebrated by their profession." Their research "caught the attention of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, helping to launch Head Start."
I just finished reading Meredith Wadman's book review of The Orphans of Davenport in Science magazine and felt compelled to mention it here (the quotes are from her review, not from the actual book). The book sounds fascinating and I intend to borrow it from my local library ASAP. It's an important reminder that affectionate and loving interactions are vital ingredients for healthy brain development. That is why "Play" is part of "Every Child Ready to Read"; playing together builds loving relationships between adults and their children.
If you're looking for some developmental tips about the importance of play and nurturing children, feel free to join me in checking out this book! (Available as an e-book also.)

Wadman, Meredith. 30 July, 2021. "The nature (and nurture) of IG: New ideas about intelligence rocked the nascent field of academic psychology in the 1930s." Science 373:6554, 498.
Brookwood, Marilyn. 2021. The Orphans of Davenport: Eugenics, The Great Depression, and the War Over Childen's Intelligence." New York: Liveright.

Suggestions from Librarians

Changing the World Through Peek-a-Boo

Once again, librarian Pam Hamlin has sent me some information so wonderful that I felt it had to posted here. This is a 7 minute TED talk given by a seven year old Molly Write, about the way babies' brains develop. She gives a fabulous presentation about the importance of talking, connecting, and playing with children in the first five years of life. She believes it can change the world, and so do I! Watch the video below:

Tracy Karbel, Children's Librarian at the Royal Oak Library in Michigan, recommends this New York Times article by parenting expert, Anya Kamenetz, that explains how COVID radically changed her pre-pandemic pronouncements about children’s technology use. The author gives parents "a toolbox of coping strategies” which includes "Focus on feelings, not screens" and describes the value of joint media engagement - something we librarians have encouraged for years!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/parenting/children-screen-time-games-phones.html

Resources

Too Small to Fail offers free bundles for parents and caregivers (and teachers and librarians too!) to help them talk, read, and sing with their children. This month, the bundle is "Let's Talk About Fall!!"

Download their latest monthly bundle by clicking here.

A Very Odd Video

A reader of this newsletter called my attention to a video they found on YouTube called "Mother Goose on the Loose Baby Steps" highlighting a program from the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. Produced by the Hanburycross Children's Educational Show, it was posted on July 4, 2021, but it is extremely weird.

The actual program is a Mother Goose on the Loose session presented by Mairi, who was a children's librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in late 1990's and early 2000s, when I was working there as well. The other librarian, Jen, was at Pratt with me too, but she left even before I did.

I left being the full-time Children's Programming Specialist at Pratt to build up my own business (Mother Goose on the Loose, LLC) and to work part-time as the Early Childhood Specialist at Port Discovery Children's Museum. After that, the early childhood programs at Pratt for parents with babies from birth to two were changed from "Mother Goose on the Loose" to "Mother Goose Baby Steps." Although that is the name used in this video, the program being presented by Mari is definitely a Mother Goose on the Loose program; Mother Goose Baby Steps didn't even exist when she worked there!

There are a lot of animals, some which tie in and some that don't seem to fit in. Plus, interspersed between the animations and Mairi's program is John "The Kinderman" Taylor, who was beloved in Baltimore, and who passed away in 2018. There are a few other random surprises there as well.

I suppose this company is using old footage and sprucing it up with animations and other clips, and reposting them in 2021 for families who are at home and looking for wholesome entertainment. But it is very strange! If you want to view it, click here !

MGOL YouTube Playlist

The MGOL YouTube Channel now has three new playlists: one for Animals Rhyme, one for Interactive Rhymes, and the other for Body Rhymes. In addition, we have been adding to our playlist of Rhymes in Spanish. To give an example, our rhyme of the month for August is a Spanish rhyme, "Rhymes: Di Adiós A Burbujas."

Check out the playlists below:
Animal Playlist
Interactive Rhymes Playlist
Body Rhymes Playlist
Spanish Songs and Rhymes Playlist

Training Opportunities

Since the pandemic, I have been creating and presenting webinars in place of my usual MGOL training workshops. Here are some of the comments by people who have attended my webinars:

From Literacy Basics & the Mother Goose on the Loose Philosophy:
"Betsy is a truly engaging and incredibly knowledgeable presenter, who knows how to break things down clearly and succinctly for her adult learner audience. I'm excited and invigorated for the next session."

"This was a great training, and I realized that most of the best practices I'd copied from other CPL librarians were part of the MGOL training. Definitely worth repeating every several years for new hires!"

From Programming for Infants, Toddlers, and Their Caregivers:
"So comprehensive! Wish I had this information when I was starting out as a children's librarian. I feel like this could have been 2 hours and it still would barely cover everything. I love that Betsy emphasizes the importance of being welcoming in the library."

Other webinars include:

Early Literacy Post-Pandemic: Lessons and Adaptations

Play Your Way to Literacy and STEM

Scarves, Songs, and Activities

Virtual and On-Site Programming for Parents & Infants: Why, What, and How?

Learning to Talk Each Other's Language: Children's Librarians and Child Care Providers

Delivering ECRR Workshops: Making Presentations to Child Care Providers Relevant and Fun

Early Literacy in the NICU with MGOL Goslings - presented with Dr. Brenda Hussey-Gardner

For information about these and other custom-made webinars, please contact Betsy at betsydc@mgol.org or 443-928-3915.

This online course, developed by Betsy, is offered on My Niche Academy. Five online modules with self-reflection questions and quizzes expand participants’ knowledge of research and practical examples about new ways to support the growth of executive function skills in babies and young children through library programs and activities.

With the belief that library programs can develop more than literacy skills, modules cover how executive function relates to brain development, early relationships, school readiness, self-regulation, working memory, economics, mindfulness, and 21^st century skills. Video clips of related skill-building activities taking place during library programs are included.

For information and registration, go to:
https://my.nicheacademy.com/MGOL/course/5590

Check out this feedback (unsolicited) from a course participant:

Erika Pacheco from the Southwest Branch Library of the Orange County Library System presents “Di Adiós A Burbujas” during her MGOL at Home session.

Lyrics:
Di adiós a burbujas burbujas, burbujas,
di adiós a burbujas, hasta luego.

English translation:
Say goodbye to all the bubbles, all the bubbles, all the bubbles,
Say goodbye to all the bubbles, see you later.

Subscribe to More MGOL Rhymes on YouTube HERE!

Developmental Tip of the Month:

Children of all ages love bubbles and playing with bubbles is a great way to build skills. Very young children can be encouraged to follow them with their eyes; being able to track things with your eyes as they go up, down, or sideways is called "Visual Tracking." Visual tracking is essential for reading. Being able to visually track objects also helps with body awareness, coordination, and posture!.

Click here to view past Mother Goose on the Loose Newsletters

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