Early Literacy Coordinator
Meet Peik-Kuan Lim, the Early Literacy Coordinator for the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library.
She brings Storytime to them! The Corvallis-Benton County Library
offers Storytime at the library for infants, toddlers, wobblers and
preschool children. As the Early Literacy Coordinator for the Library,
Peik-Kuan brings Storytime to preschools and to day care facilties and
providers. She provides these outreach activities to children who cannot
get to the library for Storytime. If you are picturing Peik-Kuan standing in front of a group of
children sitting quietly in neat rows, you do not have a clear picture
of what she does. When Peik-Kuan brings Storytime to preschool children,
she brings props, crafts and an ability to lead a group of children
based on their age, mood and developmental needs. She uses her knowledge
of early brain development to structure her programs and sometimes even
re-structure them on the fly to meet the needs of the day. Oftentimes
they spend more time singing and dancing about letters and concepts than
sitting down in one spot and listening to her read a book. She says
that working with special needs children requires many of the same
tools. It can require some additional flexibility, but she goes through
the same process to create those programs as well.Early literacy is much more than introducing letters and words on the page. Peik-Kuan's early literacy programs create context and exposure that will help turn children into active readers. She coordinates programs that include music, art and dance, and she looks for ways to engage all of their senses. She says early literacy is about getting children comfortable with and interested in written language in any number of ways. Peik-Kuan also says children exposed reading from a young age will learn very early on how to sit and hold a book, and that is the beginning of a reader!
Peik-Kuan enjoys collaborating with her colleagues in selecting
materials and assisting them in program creation. She says her
colleagues are as much a resource to her as she is to them. They bounce ideas off one another and work well as a team. She also provides guidance to volunteers, parents
and teachers. She has spent time developing and maintaining
relationships with many agencies in the area. In this way, she can help
them serve the community, and they can provide resources for our library
programs. For example, she has worked with the Oregon State University
Head Start program and given them advice on what age-appropriate items
will encourage reading.
Peik-Kuan says she finds the most important part of her job is the
ability connect with children. It is this ability that allows her to get
their attention and open them up to learning. She also says she feels
lucky to have one of those few jobs where she gets hugs wherever she
goes.
--Interview from "Read and Recycle: City of Corvallis Employee Newsletter," Volume 21, No. 10, September 30, 2011
