The 2021 Ohio Library Council Convention and Expo is October 13-15 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Columbus.
This year's Convention and Expo features an outstanding line-up of speakers and award-winning authors, plus a wide variety of professional development sessions with a targeted Youth Services track. Visit Ohio Ready to Read and the Children's Services Division at OLC Connects in the expo hall throughout the Convention!
Registration is open for the Reimagining School Readiness workshop, an interactive online event hosted by Ohio Ready to Read and the State Library of Ohio on Thursday, October 27, 2022.
This workshop is part of the Reimagining School Readiness initiative. Attendees will gain insights into the current research behind the skills and conditions that matter most for a child’s success in school and life.
Workshop topics include:
The A. Sophie Rogers School for Early Learning and the Statewide Family Engagement Center at the Ohio State University are collaborating on RealTalk, a webinar series for families of young children. Webinars take place monthly in and are recorded for anytime viewing. Topics include conflict resolution, storytime at home, race awareness, and more. These webinars are free and open to all.
The Ohio Library Council hosted a webinar in spring 2021 with First Lady Fran DeWine and representatives of the Ohio Governor's Imagination Library, Ohio public library systems, and the State Library of Ohio on the Ohio Governor’s Imagination Library (OGIL) and how public libraries are incorporating the program into their Summer Reading and fall programming
The Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Early Learning and School Readiness has released a plan to revise Ohio’s Early Learning and Development Standards (Ohio ELDS). The standards were adopted by the State Board of Education in October 2012 to describe key concepts and skills that young children develop from birth to age 5.
School Library Journal maintains a list of publisher permissions for read-aloud use of their books in your online storytimes and programs. This list is updated as new information is received from publishers:
Registration is open:
Early Literacy 101 Online Workshop
Thursdays, February 17 and 24, 2:00-4:00 pm each day
This workshop is free for any Ohio public library worker. Register here:
www.surveymonkey.com/r/EL101_Feb22
See the Early Literacy 101 page for more information about this workshop!
Are you looking for tips, techniques, and best practices for planning and producing online/virtual storytimes? Two recordings from webinars originally presented in summer 2020 are now available for free, anytime viewing via the Self-Paced Online Courses and Recorded Webinars page of the ORTR website! One is from the Ohio Library Council and the other is from WebJunction.
Find more self-paced learning opportunities for early childhood programming: ohreadytoread.org/recorded-webinars
COSI Connects provides engaging STEAM content daily through videos, documents, and hands-on science that students, teachers, and families can use at home. Content is tied directly to State of Ohio Learning Standards.
COSI Connects is for families and children anywhere in Ohio. It is free, and membership is not required. Activities are available for all age groups from early childhood through adults, and you may browse by age group to find just the early childhood activities.
A new early language and literacy website is available for families of emerging readers in Ohio! Through a collaboration between the Ohio Department of Education’s Office for Exceptional Children and the Ohio Coalition for the Education of Children with Disabilities, this website, Reading Tips for Families, will host reading definitions, activities, and resources to engage and educate families, while meeting requirements for disability accessibility and accessibility for non-English speakers.
Ohio Ready to Read presents its FREE hands-on early literacy training workshop! Open to all Ohio public library workers, Early Literacy 101 is coming to several Ohio locations in winter-spring 2023.
The Ohio Governor's Imagination Library is now Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Ohio. Besides the new name and logo, everything else remains the same. The Imagination Library provides young children a free book every month from birth to age five. Families in any Ohio county may enroll their young children in this program as early as birth.
Ohio is home to hundreds of notable authors, past and present. Jacqueline Woodson, Denise Fleming, Will Hillenbrand, Loren Long, Oge Mora, Andrea Wang, Cynthia Rylant, Drew Daywalt, Adam Rex, Daniel Kirk, Angela Johnson, David Catrow, and Tim Bowers are among the many picture book authors and illustrators who live in Ohio or have Ohio roots.
Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR), a national parent/caregiver outreach initiative, empowers public library workers to share early literacy knowledge with the caring adults in young children's lives. It was first rolled out in 2004, and is very familiar to children's services specialists. But what if you're a new children's librarian or specialist and you're hearing about ECRR for the first time? You've come to the right place!
