Equity and Early Literacy

March 4 - March 31, 2024 | Four-week course

Estimated Time Commitment: 2.5 hours per week, or 10 hours total

Equity and Early Literacy will explore the development of racial awareness and young children – with a focus on implicit bias and other cognitive biases, research about bias ingroup/outgroup bias in babies and young children, and ways to foster belonging with our youngest learners through high-quality children’s literature and equitable storytime practices.

Participants will gain an understanding of the most current research and best practices to reduce bias in young learners and action-oriented ways to ensure equity is embedded in storytimes, literacy engagement, and family programming.

This course will cover the following:

• Development of racial awareness and young children – with a focus on young children and ingroup/outgroup bias and understanding why it is so important to offer diverse programming, storytimes, and to create opportunities for positive experiences with people from diverse backgrounds
• Research about how many parents, caregivers, and educators do not talk to children about race and strengths-based ways to approach conversations about race Identifying and celebrating our differences during storytime – practicing talking about race as we read board books, picture books, and read alouds.
• Learning how to positively notice and affirm our physical, cultural, and diverse family structures
• Co-creating family programming that centers our most underserved children and families with a focus on culturally sustaining programming, and digital resources that can support access for families of young children

Presenter: Janet R. Damon has been an anti-bias educator and community librarian for twenty-four years. She is co-founder of Afros and Books, a citywide literacy and nature engagement that offers culturally sustaining programming and book clubs for families in Denver.  Her organization has offered more than fifty culturally sustaining programs for youth and distributed more than one thousand books to Denver-area youth. Janet was awarded the Inaugural Making our Futures Brighter Award from the Black Family Advisory Council in 2022, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award in 2022, and the Library Journal Mover and Shaker Award in 2020. 

CALL Training Partner for this Event: Library Juice Academy

**NOTE**: Access information for this learning event will be sent to all registrants by Library Juice Academy before the start of the event.