QUALITY STORYTENTS
A resource for family, early childhood and community literacy workers
In the Summer of 2003, the Crescent Valley Community Tenant’s Association (CVCTA) and the Saint John Free Public Library joined in a project to improve the community's access to literacy and library services through providing a Storytent program. As well, we wanted to evaluate what impact this kind of program could have on families and their community.
The research results of this project were very positive:
“For those children who chose to make frequent or intensive use of the storytent, the program was instrumental in helping them acquire or improve their reading skills. Statements by children showing them to be surprised and delighted at their own emerging and growing skills appear[ed] often in staff notes, and parents corroborat[ed] this appearance of positive self-images in their children as a result of having had a reading success in a pleasant, safe environment”
(Saint John Free Public Library, 2003, p. 4)
These positive outcomes were the result of relationships: relationships between children and books, between children and other children; between children and adults; between adults and other adults; and between the community and the library.