[EdTalks] Books and Beyond: Greenville County Library & Early Literacy

How can parents leverage free, local resources to give their children a head start in reading? The Greenville County Libraries early literacy programs offer a powerful answer. In this episode, we explore the vast ecosystem of support available to families, from free books to hands-on learning activities designed to prepare children for school and inspire a lifelong love of reading. Derek Lewis of Greenville First Steps sits down with Jennifer Pinkerman, Youth Services Manager for the Greenville County Library System, to uncover the secrets to building strong reading skills from birth.

Jennifer shares invaluable early literacy tips for parents, emphasizing the importance of daily reading routines, creating a print-rich environment, and using repetition to build excitement and comprehension. We discuss how simple habits, like reading after a bath or exploring a newspaper together, can foster deep connections and make reading a fun, anticipated part of the day. The conversation highlights how the library system supports kindergarten readiness in Greenville, SC by providing specialized resources. This includes not only an incredible selection of books but also bundled book sets and materials on topics like trucks or science, making learning at home both easy and engaging.

A major focus of the episode is the wealth of library programs for children in Greenville, SC. Jennifer details the full schedule of events, which are developmentally appropriate for every age group. This includes the "Bouncing Babies" lap-sit program for infants (birth to 18 months), "Toddler Tales" for mobile toddlers, and the popular "Preschool Story Time." We also cover the benefits of reading to newborns, explaining how early exposure to words and sounds stimulates crucial brain development and nurtures the parent-child bond. Furthermore, the discussion touches on how families can access free children's books in Greenville County, not just by checking out up to 50 books at a time from any of the 12 library branches, but also through an amazing partnership with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which mails free books directly to children's homes. This episode is a complete guide for parents and caregivers looking to take full advantage of the incredible Greenville County Libraries early literacy resources.

About Our Guest:

Jennifer Pinkerman is the Youth Services Manager for the Greenville County Library System. With a deep passion for early literacy, she oversees the development and implementation of programs and resources designed to support young learners and their families across all 12 library branches. In this episode, she shares her expert advice on how parents can use the library's free offerings to build foundational reading skills and foster a love of reading from infancy.

Episode Resources:

• Explore the Greenville County Library System's Events Calendar

• Learn more about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

Introduction

Catherine Schumacher: One of the most powerful tools that we have to support family literacy is right in your own backyard, our Greenville County Libraries. There are 12 library branches across the county, and all of them are completely free to use for our local families. How can parents, caregivers, and community members take advantage of libraries to support the literacy development of even the youngest children?

Catherine Schumacher: I'm Catherine Schumacher with Public Education Partners, and on today's episode of Simple Civics: Ed Talks, we are going to dive into the many ways our libraries are building reading skills and inspiring lifelong learners. Our guest is Jennifer Pinkerman, Youth Services Manager for the Greenville County Library System. She is interviewed by Derek Lewis, Executive Director of Greenville First Steps.

Derek Lewis: Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. We're really excited to talk about the library system. From First Step's perspective, early learning and early literacy are just so important to helping those kiddos get to kindergarten on track and ready to succeed. So, maybe if we could just start with talking a little bit about any tips that you would give for a family that is thinking, "Okay, so I know kindergarten's coming around the corner, but it's not here yet." What tips would you give to a family with a young child?

Early Literacy Tips: Building Foundational Reading Habits at Home

Jennifer Pinkerman: Thanks so much for having me today. I love any opportunity to talk about the library and our resources and especially early literacy, which is near and dear to us. My first tip would just be read to your child. Read to your child every day. The more words that they hear builds their vocabulary, comprehension, helps with further memory, and language skills, including listening and speaking.

So even infants need to hear words. Read to your child, even if it's just for a few minutes, it makes a difference. And as you read, it's important to stop and ask questions. What color is the bear's shirt? Or something simple like that. Even just ask them, what's going to happen next? Just the simple reading.

Derek Lewis: And having that routine, it's amazing how even our youngest kids will remember, after bath, we have a book, then we always have a book after bath. And they will, even in our house, our son would have the book picked out before we even said it was time to read because he knew that it was coming. And we still read together and he's 14. It is a habit that we have just continued to do. And it's just such a great way to slow down the day.

Jennifer Pinkerman: Right. And it is important because that routine helps build the habits. And then kids look forward to it. We want reading to be fun. We don't want it to ever seem like it's something that, "Oh no, I have to read." And so by doing that and establishing the routines, they learn to look forward to it. And it actually helps with parenting tasks along the way. If they know, "Oh, if I do this, I get to read my book after."

We have parents that come in and you can check out up to 50 books at the library and they'll come in and get their books. We're like, okay, we need one before bath. We need one at bedtime. We need one after snack before nap. The moms count them out, how many that they want to come and make sure they get so that they're stocked for the week.

Derek Lewis: But that is a really good point that you could also read the same book more than once, that the kids learning what's coming next is actually part of the fun that they now are in on the story.

Jennifer Pinkerman: It is. Take for example, Goodnight Moon. I know I read that one with my kids. We read it a lot in library programs and they even learn the quiet lady whispering, and they all just wait so that they can do the hush at the end. Repetition is so good because it does build excitement and participation.

It's also important that families surround their children with books. Just a print-rich environment in general is going to make them more, "Oh, I haven't read that book. Let's see if we can read that book." It exposes them to so many words, which encourages their brain development, and it truly does foster a love of reading.

Derek Lewis: Even with our elementary school kids, I remember my wife made me watch all the seasons with Gilmore Girls. And one of the things I remember from it was the granddad always giving Rory a newspaper to read whenever she came over. And I thought that's kind of cool. I don't think that I've ever thought about the habit of presenting a newspaper, but even in our house with an elementary school kid, at breakfast every morning, we would sit and look at the newspaper on our tablet.

And he last week was saying, "Do you remember when we used to read the sports section in the paper?" He just remembered those habits as just being a part of what he did at breakfast, which was kind of neat, because I didn't think he was paying attention at all to what we were talking about.

Jennifer Pinkerman: Right. And even things like that, a magazine, a newspaper, even narrating things as you're going to the grocery store, just every word they hear helps with later school readiness.

Derek Lewis: So we know the library has a great variety of books for all ages and all interests. There are how many libraries in Greenville County?

Jennifer Pinkerman: We have 12 locations plus our bookmobile and a soon-to-be 13th location when our new Blue Ridge library opens later this year.

Derek Lewis: That's exciting. And so when you have a library card, you can go to any of those libraries?

Jennifer Pinkerman: any location. You can check out at any library, return at any library. We want it to be as easy as possible for you to come, check out what you need and return them.

Derek Lewis: The other thing that's neat that I love is that the library's online system will allow you to find a book that's at another library and they'll ship it for free to your library. And so many times I've been able to go to our Augusta Road Library and get the book from the main library that isn't at that campus.

Jennifer Pinkerman: We have couriers who get things to and from all of our branches every day on their routes. And we just want to put books into people's hands.

From Guided Reading Books to Teaching Kits: Library Tools for Parents

Derek Lewis: So we can get books. What are some of the other things that we can maybe use libraries for to maybe expose kids to language or literacy or activities?

Jennifer Pinkerman: We also have teaching kits, which is a kit, a bucket of books and materials that you check out as one item. They contain everything from board books to a bilingual book to picture books to nonfiction. And they're all associated with a theme. We've taken those and made them more intentional by matching them to the South Carolina State Teaching Standards and the DSS Early Learning Standards. And they're for teachers, parents, homeschool families, or just a mom whose kid is, "we're into trucks this week." And so, can you show me some books, and then we can offer this whole themed kit that they can take.

Free Library Programs for Every Age: From Infants to Preschoolers

Derek Lewis: So one of our favorite things, though, at the main library was when we could go on the calendar and see activities that are happening at the library. So can we just talk a little bit about what are some of the events that you can participate in with your little ones at the library?

Jennifer Pinkerman: Well, it's one of my favorite things to talk about because we've got so many programs geared towards from our infants, preschoolers, all the way up to school age, teens. And we even have lots of programs for adults. We have our Bouncing Babies program that is a lap-sit program for parents to do with their infants. It's for birth to 18 months. And they come and they listen to stories and do movement activities and just get the children immersed in literacy and speech and that type of thing.

We progress up to our Toddler Tales program. So when they're a little more mobile and they're moving around, we just want to make sure we're very intentional as far as the programs being developmentally appropriate for the age of the child. Then we move up to, we've got a Musical Jamboree program where we bring in music and kids get to do hands-on with instruments with their stories. Our biggest one is our Preschool Story Time. That's offered at almost every location, every week. And it's your traditional read books, sing songs, get up and do the hokey pokey, just a whole literacy experience.

Then we can move into other events. We have some STEAM events for preschoolers. We do a Science Station, Jr. program where they do mini experiments. We got our Preschool Picassos program, which is art-based for preschoolers, and then we also take those programs up to school age where we'll have The Studio, which is arts, and we do a LEGO Club, and we'll just have some, we just pick a topic and the programmer will run with it. So there's always something fun going on. You can go to our website and look on our kids' event page and our calendar. You can break it down by location. You can break it down by type of program. So you can narrow in on where you want to go and what you want to do.

The Benefits of Reading to Newborns and Infants

Derek Lewis: It's interesting because I would think most people probably when they think of events at the library, think of those preschool, 4K, 5K story time activities. But to have these activities for newborns is really interesting because most of the families that we work with don't realize how important exposure to language and literacy is for a newborn who isn't even, they're not even thinking about reading yet. So can you just talk a little bit about why, from your perspective, it's important to put books and language in front of newborns?

Jennifer Pinkerman: It's so important because just building that awareness from a young age, their brain development starts day one. And by exposing them to words, sounds, music, it's going to start creating those little neural pathways. We really want to make sure that we're nurturing not only the reading, but it also nurtures the parent-child relationship because for some of these parents, they're new parents. And it's also modeling for them how to interact with their child, how to have that experience of sitting and reading together.

I failed to mention our Mother Goose on the Loose program, which is excellent while we're talking about infants, because that one is for one to 24 months. And it takes a little different spin with rhymes, just nurturing play. Hearing the repetition of some of the same rhymes each week. For an infant, they start hearing the same thing over and over. They're going to perk up because that repetition is going to help them start building those skills. It's just really important to read to the infants, get them in early, and just start.

And we've definitely found the ones that come into our Bouncing Babies and Mother Goose program, they'll graduate up to Toddler Tales and Storytime. And we're just really hoping to build that lifelong love of the library and reading.

Expanding Access to Free Books with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Derek Lewis: Well, we're just so thankful that all of these resources are available and that so much of this is available free of charge. I know you also serve on the board for Greenville First Steps. We would be remiss to not also talk about Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. So in addition to the library system, having all of these books and resources families can check out, they can also go online and sign up for free for Dolly Parton's and the books will actually be mailed to their home. We're certainly thankful to the First Steps board for approving that commitment. And that link and the link to the library's activities will both be in our show notes.

Jennifer Pinkerman: Right. We're so thankful First Steps provides the rack cards for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. And we talk about it in our programs. And we put those in the hands of parents. And at first, some of them are, "Really? Free books?" Mailed to your house. We're like, "Really, really? Go online. Let's see if your address qualifies." It's a great resource and it's definitely a very good partnership.

Derek Lewis: Well, we are thrilled for all the work that you're doing in Greenville County. Thank you for all the resources that you shared with us today, and we'll definitely help keep people informed of other activities to come.

Jennifer Pinkerman: Okay, thanks so much for having me.

Derek Lewis: Thank you.