Let's March into March with MGOL!

Mother Goose on the Loose March 2021 Newsletter

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Table of Contents
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A Note From Betsy

Time Sensitive!
Interesting Upcoming Webinars

News & Ideas
Congratulations, Liz McChesney
Correction Notice

Research
LENA - Inside Early Talk
LENA- Best Practices for Parent Recruitment
R epetition Rocks

Book Recommendations
Peek-a-Mood

Resources
Importance of Nursery Rhymes
Messy Little Monster Nursery Rhyme Craft Activities
Virtual Escape Room
Bingo Card Generator

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

I'm sending out this newsletter a bit early this month, because there are some fascinating, free, upcoming webinars in March and I wanted to let you know about them before they take place.

This weekend, my local paper, The Baltimore Sun, reprinted a New York Times article which reminded me of Mother Goose on the Loose. Entitled "Putting Your Kid to Work: Experts say meeting real life challenges is best way for them to build self-efficacy" the article basically lauded setting up doable tasks for children and then giving positive reinforcement.

It's exactly like the activity when we ask young children to come up to the flannel board and pull a felt Humpty Dumpty off of his wall. Everyone applauds and the children are rewarded for listening, following directions, and successfully completing a task. The librarian, who is sitting next to the flannel board facing the child, sees the immense look of pride on the child's face after pulling Humpty off and being recognized for it.

The newspaper article focuses on having parents ask children to help with tasks around the home even though it might be easier for them to do it themselves, since it builds self-efficacy -- "a person's belief that they are capable of successfully meeting the tasks or challenges that face them [which] can yield immediate benefits."

These types of first-person accomplishments are called "mastery experiences" by Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura. Because I love this article and think it is relevant to those of us who work with very young children, I will quote some of it:

Lea Waters, professor of positive psychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, said self-efficacy “is a primal part of the formula of good mental health, because without that sense of efficacy, without that belief that I can get things done, you can really easily see how a young person or even an adult would not only lose their confidence, but lose their motivation to move forward.” Humans thrive on a sense of control and capability; low self-efficacy, or learned helplessness, is associated with anxiety, depression, lack of hope and lack of motivation, she said, while higher self-efficacy is associated with life satisfaction, self-confidence, social connection and growth mind-set .

Mastery experiences don’t have to be grand accomplishments. Dr. Waters pointed to things as small as kids completing “a Lego build that was a little bit hard,” packing their own backpacks or walking the dog by themselves.

She suggests that parents become detectives who notice a child’s successes and narrate them. This purposeful shift toward noticing and acknowledging small wins helps parents take a positive approach while it also helps kids internalize a sense of their growing abilities.

“We can spot those things and acknowledge, ‘You did that really well; you did that all by yourself,’ or ‘You didn’t need as much help from me this time around,’” she said. These successes build up what she called a “bank account” of feelings of efficacy for children that they can draw on the next time they face a challenge, when parents can remind the child, “You know, last time you felt that way, and then you ended up being able to do it all by yourself.”

I'm not going to quote any more; read the article yourself by clicking on the link!

I believe that MGOL's Humpty activity is popular with children of all ages because it gives them that feeling of self-efficacy. In addition to completing a task successfully, they are publicly recognized for their achievement. While learning about taking turns, being patient, paying attention, and following directions, the children are also absorbing the message that they are competent people who can accomplish what they set out to do.

I am grateful to be in a profession that helps children and families in such simple yet profound ways. Through modeling activities that can help even the youngest children build self-efficacy, we are giving them tools to help them throughout life. Yay for librarians!!!!

Betsy

To read a scholarly article about the importance of self-efficacy, click on the article below:
Tahmassian, K., & Jalali Moghadam, N. (2011). Relationship between self-efficacy and symptoms of anxiety, depression, worry and social avoidance in a normal sample of students. Iranian journal of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, 5(2), 91–98

Time Sensitive: Free
March Webinars You May Want to Attend

LENA presents:
Wednesday, March 17, 1 PM ET - Inside Early Talk: Our point of greatest leverage for improving children’s futures
Improving early language development is widely agreed to be the most effective — and cost-effective — way to address a wide range of societal challenges. Now, LENA has collected and analyzed its most expansive data set to date through the 10,000 children annually impacted across more than 50 communities served by our programs for families and early childhood teachers. These data put us in the unprecedented position to understand the early language environments of very young children and answer questions we've been hearing from the field for years.

In this webinar, we’re excited to share what we've learned and presented in our new report, Inside Early Talk. This information can give policy makers, philanthropists, and program implementers the tools they need to show why supporting caregivers in focusing on early talk is key to ensuring the success and well-being of all children. Register here: https://info.lena.org/inside-early-talk-webinar.

Brazelton Touchpoints presents: Learning to Listen Series. Register here: https://www.brazeltontouchpoints.org/listen2021/

(simultaneous Spanish language translation is offered at all conversations)

Webinar 1: Wednesday, March 17, 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT:

Disrupting Implicit Bias in Early Childhood Programs
Featuring Dr. Rosemarie Allen, President and CEO for the Institute for Racial Equity & Excellence

Webinar 2: Wednesday, April 28, 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT

Listening to Transgender Children, Transforming Ourselves
Featuring Debi Jackson, Founder of Gender Inc.

Webinar 3: Wednesday, May 12, 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT

Uniting Worldviews to Advance Relationships in Indigenous Communities
Featuring Terry (Ha-ne-ga-noh) Cross, MSW, Senior Advisor to the National Indian Child Welfare Association

New America Presents:

[ONLINE] - Public Libraries and the Pandemic

Monday, March 22, 2021 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM ET, WEBINAR

The pandemic has exacerbated divides that have long determined who can access resources online and how, making it harder than ever for those who need critical information and library services the most. Join us to unpack the findings from New America’s report Public Libraries and the Pandemic: Digital Shifts and Disparities to Overcome that explores the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on public libraries, discuss innovative programs that libraries are developing to address these issues, and highlight policies that support more equitable access. RSVP here.

[ONLINE] - Reimagining Early Care and Education

Tuesday, March 30, 2021 from 12:00 PM to 03:00 PM ET, WEBINAR

We need bold changes to early care and education policies and practices at all levels. We invite you to join us for an event where we examine why reimagining and investing in early care and education must be a national priority and explore how to make it a reality for all children. RSVP here.

Congratulations, Liz McChesney

Liz McChesney is the former director of children's services and family engagments for the Chicago Public Library. She has been a strong supporter of Mother Goose on the Loose and wrote about "MGOL in Laundromats" in my book Mother Goose on the Loose; Here, There, And Everywhere. She is also co-author of the book I highlighted in last month's newsletter, Keke's Super-strong Double Hugs.

Liz is a well-known champion of children and children's librarians. She is currently a Consultant for the LaundryCares Foundation, is serving as a Senior Advisor to Urban Libraries Council and is a Consultant to National Summer Learning Association. You can read about her many accomplishments by clicking here. Congratulations, Liz, this is an award well-deserved!

Correction Notice:

The past two newsletters invited readers to contribute video clips of their rhyme activities to MGOL's YouTube Playlists or to send links to their virtual MGOL programs to be posted on MGOL at Home.
Both times, I mistakenly gave the wrong email for my daughter, Maya, who is organizing all this.

To share video clips or virtual MGOL programs, please contact Maya at mayadiamantcohen@gmail.com
Thank you

In 2017, I attended the Annual Conference of NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children). There, I attended a session called “Strong Beginnings for Babies: Families Fostering Early Language Development,” given by Mary Knight-McKenna & Heidi Collingsworth from Elon University.

The presenters spoke about their research project, SBB, and how they utilized materials from the LENA Research Foundation http://www.lenafoundation.org/. This Foundation spent ten years developing the LENA Digital Language Processor and Vest. It is a recorder that resides inside a vest which is placed on a baby. The recorder records all words that are spoken in the environment, and distinguishes whether they are vocalizations by the baby or by other people directed to the baby. It does not record electronic voices. The actual words are not recorded; instead, the syllables and the spaces between them (to delineate a word) are recorded and uploaded to a LENA site on the cloud where the material is analyzed. This does not invade anyone’s privacy because it does not record any actual words.

LENA technology was developed to discover how different types of adult talk behavior affect children and what works best to make a difference. Now, there are different LENA devices which can record many hours of natural talk environments and can quickly generate data that provides objective feedback to parents, teachers, and caregivers on exactly how much they talk with children. The data is also shared with researchers.

LENA's research team's first substantial foray into the enormous data set that has come out of LENA programs over the last few years has led to the publication of a new report about early language environments. Called Inside Early Talk, this report presents six new findings, comparing home settings to child care settings, looking at the effects of COVID-19, establishing a new benchmark for the number of conversational turns caregivers should be aiming for, and more.

Inside Early Talk can be downloaded at: https://info.lena.org/inside-early-talk. Please feel free to share the report widely!

A research summary can be downloaded here

.

In addition, LENA will be hosting a free webinar about the report with the head researcher on March 17. I'll be there and you can participate too! Learn more and register here: https://info.lena.org/inside-early-talk-webinar.

Even more from LENA!

LENA- Building Brains Through Early Talk

Five Best Practices for Parent Recruitment and Retention (Virtually or In Person)

A timely addition for any librarian or educator's playbook, LENA has created a list of best practices to help us reach more parents during our mission of early childhood development.

You can read the full piece HERE.

1. Understand the process. (Organize)
2. Collaborate with partners.
3. Diversify and optimize touchpoints.
4. Identify and reduce obstacles to enrollment. (That is critical!)
5. Incentivize families to attend.

Thank you to Pamela Hamlin, a librarian in Prince George's County, MD, for sending us this great piece!

Repetition Rocks!

This article in The Academic Times (with a fabulous picture of two Muppets underneath the heading), talks about newly published research regarding children's word learning when viewing a book and the same story presented on digital media.

Researchers Susan B. Neuman, Preeti Samudra, and Kevin M. Wong studied preschoolers who were exposed to stories that were presented in multiple ways, and discovered that "gains in incidental word learning were significantly stronger when children viewed two different media of comparable content compared to two exposures to a single medium." Although story comprehension was not affected, findings "suggest that two media presentations of comparable stories may be more effective in promoting incidental word learning than repeated presentations of a single medium."

This is exactly the premise of my book, Transforming Preschool Storytime (which happens to be part of ALA's 50% off sale right now because they are moving offices and reducing inventory). I believe that presenting the same story in ways that let children use multiple intelligences is easier to remember and makes a stronger impact, Since each person has different strengths and weaknesses, presenting information in only one way may play to strengths of one person but not to the other.

Read the article about the research here.
Read the published research here.

Book Recommendations

Peek-a-Mood by Giuliano Ferri is a terrific new book for babies, toddler, and preschoolers. As a cardboard book, it is fitting for young children who explore reading by biting and dribbling on books. It can also be disinfected easily, which is particularly helpful in these difficult times.

Facial expressions on each of the beautifully illustrated animals indicate how they are feeling; flaps representing hands, paws, or feet can be lifted to uncover the printed word that describes the feeling. Babies will love the peek-a-boo element, toddlers will enjoy lifting the flaps and mimicking the facial expressions, preschoolers will enjoy all of the elements while also having fun guessing how each animals feels.

This is a book, a game, and also a great way to help children explore emotions, giving them words to help express how they are feeling. A mirror on the final page encourages children to show and tell their adult how they are feeling.

Ferri, Giulano. 2021. Peek-a-Mood. minedition.

Resources

In "More Than Words: Using Nursery Rhymes and Songs to Support Domains of Child Development," Educator Ginger Mullen explains how nursery rhymes can be "used and adapted for different age groups to mitigate challenging situations, create emotional bonds, and promote children's early language development." Using a Canadian EDI (early development instrument, similar to the US domains of school readiness), she give examples of rhymes and explains how they build skills in the different domains.

If you're looking for craft activities related to nursery rhymes, check out the site, Messy Little Monster. A description of the importance of nursery rhymes for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers is followed by art, craft, and activity ideas created by an early years teacher. You can visit the site HERE.

Looking for a virtual experience to keep your skills sharp? Try visiting the virtual escape room hosted by the Basalt Public Library in Basalt, Colorado. https://www.basaltlibrary.org/escape.html

Here's a free and easy way to create your own Bingo games to use with children or to recommend to parents who are looking for games to play with their children!
https://myfreebingocards.com/bingo-card-generator

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 workshops:

From Using the MGOL Method to Create High Quality Early Literacy Programs
"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 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."

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. Love that Betsy emphasizes the importance of being welcoming in the library."

Other trainings include:

Flannel Board Fun
Using Props in Programs
Play Your Way to Literacy
Creating Connections
Tips for Virtual Programming
Using Brain Research, Flannel Boards, & Storytime Props to Help Children Build Early Literacy Skills
Train the Trainer: for librarians who will be presenting workshops from the Ready to Read Michigan Toolkit to families and childcare providers

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:

Abby Kingsbury, Head Children's Librarian at Harvard Public Library presents “And You Kick, And You Kick, And You Kick, And You Stop” during a virtual MGOL program

Subscribe to More MGOL Rhymes on YouTube HERE!

Developmental Tip of the Month:

When you are moving, the neural connections in your brain develop at a faster rate than when you are sitting still. Movement actually improves children's ability to learn! In addition to getting children to move, an activity like "And You Kick" also gives them practice at paying attention, listening for verbal cues, and building vocabulary.

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