Our goal for the Teen Literacy Kit Outreach program was two-fold. We wanted to encourage teens from high poverty and homeless families to continue building their reading and writing skills over the summer. We also wanted to bring our library-based programs to the teens in our area who didn’t have transportation to the library during our regularly scheduled programs. To accomplish this, we decided to have our outreach program consist of three components: off-site programs, literacy kits, and a mobile library. The programs were space-themed in conjunction with the Summer Reading Program: A Universe of Stories. They included interactive book talks, games, and prizes to get our teens excited about reading, just like the programs that we offer in the library. The book talks highlighted the books that we provided in the literacy kits and were designed to appeal to teens of varying academic ability. Each program had a book-themed team game or experiment that included physical and critical-thinking challenges with the winning team taking home a prize at the end. All participating teens received a literacy kit in a backpack with the book from the program, a notebook, pen/pencil, bookmark, and a packet of writing prompts and games. We provided two separate literacy kits, one for each program. We also brought a mobile honor library with a selection of junior and young adult fiction and nonfiction that the teens were free to use regardless of their ability to return the books.
Type: Active
Age: Middle school
Optimal size: 20+
Estimated cost: $100+
Planning time: 5+ hours
Frequency: Monthly
Learning outcomes
The teens that participated in one or both of our programs were able to build skills in community, creativity, learning, and literacy. Our games and experiments were team-based and required good communication skills and flexible thinking to complete the challenges. Teens learned about electrical current, static electricity, and the physics behind moon craters while working together to gain points for their teams. The book talks gave them a glimpse into the book that they would receive in the literacy kit to encourage their interest in reading, and the writing prompts and book-based games helped them to build their critical reading and writing skills.
Instructions
Choose the book or books that you would like to include in your literacy kits. The programs and kits will be based on the book that you choose. We used Cinder by Marissa Meyer and Pi in the Sky by Wendy Mass.
Build the Kits. Drawstring backpack, book, Notebook with unlined paper, themed book mark, pen/pencil, themed toy, packet of writing prompts and games based on book.
Find a location that will allow you to set up your program within walking distance for the teens in your area. We used the parking lot at our local Dollar General store. Note: have a rainy day backup location!
Create a 5 minute book talk to get the teens interested in your book. We had two library staff members who lead the program. We acted out the scene from Cinder when Cinder first meets Kai, complete with a paper mache android and mannequin foot. After the scene, we encouraged the teens to ask questions about the book.
Choose experiments and/or games for the teams to work on together. We had three group challenges per program. For instance, the Cinder program had teens create a circuit board that would light up twinkle lights by taping aluminum foil in rectangular strips to construction paper and connecting the strips with single lights and wires. If the circuit board was created correctly, the lights would light up when the teens applied a D battery to the circuit board. The challenge was to create a circuit board that used up the entire piece of paper, had at least three turns, and incorporated three or more lights. The working board with the most lights and turns at the end of 10 minutes was the winner. We also did an experiment using static electricity to float tinsel above a PVC pipe. The teams could earn points by being the first team to float the tinsel and the team that could keep the tinsel in the air the longest. The last challenge was to determine which of the objects created the deepest "moon crater" in a turkey pan filled with layers of flour, sugar, oatmeal, and coca powder. They had several objects to choose from: marbles, golf balls, easter eggs, tennis balls, and gravel rocks. The teams had to write down their predictions listing the objects from which would create the most shallow crater to which would create the deepest crater. The most accurate predictions won.
Collect books for the honor library. We reached out to the other libraries in our county and collected Junior and Young Adult books that they were weeding from their collections. We had a combination of fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels.
Evaluation
We wanted to get feedback from the teens participating in the programs, so we put together a three-question survey that asked the following questions. What did you like best about the program today? What would you change about the program today? What kind of program would you like the library to do in the future? We had mixed results on the survey. Of the seventeen completed surveys, all of the participants enjoyed the science experiments and the team competition. They also expressed excitement about the literacy kits and were looking forward to using the journal to write and draw. They weren’t as excited about the book talks. We had three participants say that they would have shown a video of the books, not realizing that the books hadn’t been made into movies. Five of the participants said that they would have had the program inside because it was too hot. The most common future programming suggestion was that we do a program at their school, which is difficult for us because we’re not the closest public library to them. It is something that we could pursue in conjunction with the public library in their area, and we’ll talk with the library staff about partnering on a program next summer. We’ll also look for an indoor location for the program with air-conditioning. The heat made it difficult for the teens to participate fully.