Tips for Running a Bilingual Story Time by Ruth Paget
When I began to work as the Youth Services Librarian for the Monterey County Free Libraries (California), I looked up the census figures for Monterey County and saw that Hispanics represented 51% of the County and that this population was growing. I could also see that many children came from families where English was not spoken at home from the census.
I wanted to run bilingual story times, which would encourage Spanish-speakers to learn English and encourage English speakers and other children to learn Spanish as a job skill later in life. In business terms, those two goals were my Mission Statement. My Vision Statement was to get story times done in French, an Asian language, Italian, and German and other languages depending on demand.
Songs teach rhythm, which is very important for oral understanding of any language, including English, and for making yourself understood when you speak a foreign language. You especially learn what is acceptable pitch in a foreign language. People usually do not want to buy things from salespeople, who sound like they are screaming.
Songs with little exercise games help children learn to distinguish between right and left. Math and driving both need you to know the difference between right and left. These song-games build coordination as well. You are supposed to have finger plays with songs in story hours that go with a saying to help coordinate small-motor muscle movement in the hands. I prefer using art activities to develop small-motor muscle development, because most finger-play games use made-up vocabulary or are religious.
Many people who do story time use puppets. The County did not have good puppets when I joined the county libraries and no stage, so I hired professional, puppet troupes to do puppet shows for the summer reading program. Professional puppeteers also know that children suspend belief when watching puppet shows; They are like television shows.
Traditionally, puppet shows whether they be held in Java or Sicily, for example, had shows for the aristocracy where the children could learn etiquette and watch puppet shows about Roland the knight. The peasants got to watch Pinocchio by Collodi.
When I ran the bilingual story time, I would give the song sheet lyrics on pieces of copy paper in English and Spanish. I let the moms who were there take the song sheets home, so they could sing these songs to their children at home and also learn English or Spanish.
After songs, you read a story book or two, do some more songs with movement exercises, and an art project related to the books, so the children can remember the theme of the book and learn how to use items such as scissors, tape, paste, paints, and pencils. The best art projects also teach design and color coordination in addition to the use of basic office products.
Children who go to story times and who are read to at home on a daily basis have an enormous advantage in number of vocabulary words they know when they go to kindergarten. They also know how to behave, so they can learn higher-level skills while other children are just learning the alphabet. (Spanish-speaking parents can use English-language audio books with their children and have them follow along with the text to learn English.)
I went to story times at the public library in Highland Park, Michigan and at Bible School at my church on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings in addition to having my family read to me on a daily basis. I had a major problem when I went to kindergarten, because I could already read. My Chinese kindergarten teacher made me learn numbers and counting very well to stop disturbing class.
Story times and summer reading entertainment programs are offered at 11:30 am usually, because that is the optimal time for children to absorb knowledge according to my former supervisor. I volunteered to do evening and weekend story times for working parents, but according to upper managers, the public was not interested, because families did sports and shopping on the weekends. They were right. I insisted on trying and no one came.
A good story time requires just as much planning as a lesson plan for children to learn anything in them. I have never believed in story time as “entertainment” or as a competitor for television, movies, and video games. And, certainly not a time to promote book tie-in merchandise displayed around the library, tie-in contests, and tie-in book bag choices in the library.
If you want story time to be just fun, you can go to Chucky Cheese Pizza and play games to win stuffed toys. (Young children and teens should be viewed as minds to develop and not as a marketing group, who makes guilty parents buy them books to make up for not spending quality time with them.)
The Monterey County Libraries had and probably still has one of the best collections in the country for doing bilingual story times. The books are located throughout its seventeen branches. Borrowers can request books from all branches online.
I used books similar to the ones below to do bilingual story times. You can use the Amazon “Look Inside” feature to help you judge, if you would like to buy these books, if they are not available at your library:
Bilingual Song Books
-The Bilingual Book of Rhymes, Songs, Stories, and Finger Plays by Pam Schiller, Rafael Lara-Alecio, and Beverly J. Irby
-Pio Peep! Traditonal Spanish Nursery Rhymes selected by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Compoy
-De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs for Children selected, arranged, and translated by Jose-Luis Orozco
Pre-School Games and Exercises
-Unique Games and Sports Around the World: A Reference Guide edited by Doris Corbett, John Cheffers, and Eileen Crowley Sullivan
-303 Preschooler – Approved Exercises and Active Games by Kimberly Wechsler
Puppet Theatre
-The Italian Puppet Theatre: A History by John McCormick
-A Show of Hands: Using Puppets with Young Children by Ingrid M. Crepeau and M. Ann Richards
Art Education for Preschoolers
-Creative Art for the Developing Child: A Guide for Early Childhood Education by Clare Cherry
-The Child Care Centers Management Guide by Clare Cherry
A note on summer reading:
Some families do fun birthday parties for their children with pony rides, clowns, puppets, magicians, ventriloquists, musicians, artists who teach portrait drawing and cartoon drawing, juggling, English parlor games, etiquette lessons from around the world as host and guests eat lovely ethnic meals, self-defense sports demonstrations in sports such as karate and capoeira angola, and ballroom dancing lessons. Some families even teach old-fashioned ballroom dancing at these affairs.
I planned activities like these for summer reading at the Monterey County Free Libraries to make summer reading a free summer camp for children and teens here. Several of the programs featured bilingual entertainers. It is fun and nerve-wracking to plan 130 shows like these in a six-week period, but I am glad I did it.
Finally, Two Theory Books about why Story Time and Summer Reading are Great Enrichment Programs for Youth:
-Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood by Jean Piaget
-The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray
-Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freyre
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
