This article is from page 16 of the 2008-09-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
‘STORY Sack’ courses have become a wonderful means of parent-child interaction to help develop the read- ing habit early in life.
Devised by Clare Family Learn- ing Project (CFLP), a new series of courses 1s about to be launched in the county’s six public libraries, with an introductory workshop to which par- ents and their primary school chil- GieNm-DucmUIN AI Koree
Frances O’Gorman of Clare Li- brary Service is supporting CFLP to attract parents to the courses so they
can encourage their children to read more. A week after each workshop, a six-week course begins when each parent gets two free books, a cloth bag and background information.
The deValera Library in Ennis, Kilrush library and the Sean Lemass Library in Shannon will kick off the workshops on Tuesday, September 23. Next day it is the turn of Killa- loe followed on Thursday, September 25 by Ennistymon and Scariff. All workshops get under way at 3.30pm. The succeeding courses are delivered on the corresponding weekdays from 10.30am to noon.
CFLP co-ordinator Mary Flanagan explains, “Participants create their own ‘story sack’ made up of props related to a specific book.
“This is developed week by week as a different part of a book is focussed on and the appropriate items are made and collected together in the sack. The process gives participants an opportunity to think about what elements there are to a book, the val- ue of sharing books with children, all in a fun and creative milieu.”
She describes the aims of the cours- es, firstly, as encouraging parents to improve their confidence and stimu-
late an interest in books and stories. Going on from there, they can identi- fy a good book, choose suitable ones for their children and be aware of use of voice and tone when sharing/read- ing stories.
Next step is to realise that there are opportunities to extend vocabu- lary when sharing books; that books have component parts and come to understand there are different sorts of books.
Creating games that complement the stories is a further aim.
More details are available right now at each of the libraries.