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Librarian visits preschoolers

Library’s early literary program takes storytimes to children

Each month, Molly Link, the Newport News Public Library System’s early literacy outreach librarian, reads to about 900 children ages 5 and younger. She brings books and suggestions for how to use them to locations such as early childhood centers, preschool special needs, childcare facilities, preschools and homecare throughout Newport News.

Molly Link, the Newport News Public Library System’s early literacy outreach librarian, reads to 1- and 2-year-olds in January at the Jewish Community Center in Newport News. Photo courtesy of the Jewish Community Center.

Caregivers often find it difficult to bring preschoolers to the Library for storytimes. So in Newport News, the Library comes to them.

Each month, Molly Link, the Newport News Public Library System’s early literacy outreach librarian, reads to about 900 children ages 5 and younger. She brings books and suggestions for how to use them to locations such as early childhood centers, preschool special needs, childcare facilities, preschools and homecare throughout Newport News.

“A lot of times you can’t take kids to the Library,” said Michelle Stieler, a teacher at Lee Hall Early Childhood Center. “We can’t do field trips or walk to the Library, but the Library comes to us.”

Librarian Molly Link reads to about 180 children aged 4 and 5 each month at the Lee Hall Early Childhood Center. A part of Newport News Public Schools, the Center provides full-day, pre-kindergarten classes near Fort Eustis in Newport News.

The visits offer children a fun environment to develop an early love of reading with stories, songs and crafts.

“She’s so great with them,” Stieler said of Link. “The kids like having new people come to the class. It’s special for them, and she’s so enthusiastic and includes rhymes and finger plays. I learn about new books and authors, too.”

Stieler said that other community members volunteer to read to the children, as well, but the Library visits are more consistent and appropriate for the age group with songs and poems that are often related to what the children are learning at that time.

“It’s Important for them to have access to books,” Stieler said. “When the kids go home and tell their parents that a special person came to class from the Library, it’s opening the parents to the possibilities offered by the Library, too. We all feel really lucky that we have her come.”

For more information or to arrange for visits, please contact Molly Link or Lisa Crisman, Newport News Public Library System’s family and youth services coordinator, at 757-926-1350.

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