We're famous!

...er...or not. But we were mentioned in the newspaper! The article was really about my friend Kim. Read on...we are mentioned at the very end.

Storyteller spins spells: Kim Harper charged with task of preparing kids to read

By ERIN MILLS

The East Oregonian

Kim Harper sat comfortably on her heels in a corner of the Boardman library. On her head, photos of groundhogs were pinned to a fishing hat.

"Do you know what's going to happen Tuesday?" she asked her audience of three rapt toddlers. "It's a silly day called Groundhog Day."

Then, using a small visual tool with a groundhog pasted to a popsicle stick and a piece of paper, Harper broke into "Here's a Little Groundhog," a song that chronicles the groundhog's yearly weather check and the sad possibility of three more weeks of winter.

As Harper sang, more preschoolers and parents arrived and settled in for storytime. Harper greeted each child by name and enthusiastically started reading her first book, "Things I Wear."

"I wear socks!" one little girl said happily, pointing to a photo of a pair of socks.

"Raise your hand if your wearing socks," Harper called, and a few hands rose. Later, Harper sang "If you're happy and you know it," and gave hugs and high-fives with her gorilla puppet, Mr. Sam.

She is too modest to call herself this, but Harper is the Morrow County Storyteller.

As part of the Oregon Trail Library District's First Steps outreach program, Harper travels to day-care centers and libraries - 20 different locations in the county - and reaches 200 children every month. Her goal, and one that she believes passionately in, is helping children get ready to read.

"Kids who have been read to and sang to, their brain structure is different," she said, "and it enables them to have these skills.

"Basic skills such as print awareness - the knowledge of how to hold a book and turn the pages - serve as a foundation for learning to read and write, Harper said.

But Harper isn't trying to just reach preschoolers; she also wants to reach their parents.

By telling stories and singing songs and nursery rhymes, Harper models for parents' positive interaction and demonstrates how to encourge early literacy skills in the very young. Parents are told that they are their child's first teacher, Harper said, but it's not as arduous a task as some fear. Just cuddling with your child, talking to them and singing to them will have an impact.

Harper takes rotating boxes of books on her rounds, and twice a month the program has a book giveaway so that children can have books of their own.

"The idea is to bring the library's resources into the community," she said.

Harper also writes a monthly parent newsletter that describes an early literacy skill and how to cultivate it in your child. February's edition, for example, focuses on letter knowledge - helping your child recognize that specific sounds go with specific letters.

Harper started storytelling for the library district after she moved to Boardman from Corvallis with her husband four years ago. She has two small children of her own and also substitutes at Boardman's elementary schools. She applied for the storytelling position when she saw a flyer at the library one day. Since then, she said she's learned a great deal about literacy and child development.

"It's been a tremendous thing in my life," she said. "It's enriched my children's lives and it's enriched my life. It's been a good thing all around."

And it's also fun, she said.

That would be the only thing that matters to two-year-old Jack Sparks. Morgan Sparks, Jack's mom, said she brings him and her six-month-old daughter, Sage, to storytime at the Boardman library every week.

"When it comes to be Friday, he starts saying, 'Are we going to see Kim at the library?'" Morgan Sparks said. "And he wants to sing the thumbkin song - he calls it Kim's song."