From staff reports
Trussville Public Library recently received a donation of $4,400 from the Trussville Noon Rotary Club in support of the library’s Early Literacy projects. The club combined a Rotary District 6860 grant and the club’s own community service funds to make the award.
“Easy reader books provide the beginning building blocks for reading skills,” said Children’s Librarian Rebecca Burchfield. “These books focus on letter sounds, sight words, and other important aspects of learning to read. Readers use simple stories with only a few words or a couple of sentences per page, and they frequently use repetition to reinforce sounds and concepts.”
Burchfield said children in kindergarten through second grade use easy readers in learning to read because the format emphasizes the skills they are developing while keeping them engaged with a short story.
“As the children build their reading skills, they become confident readers, and they become comfortable with longer more challenging books,” she said.
The easy reader section of the Trussville Public Library Children’s Department sees heavy use because it provides a vital step in learning to read. Thus, the collection must be constantly updated, and many titles are replaced often. Each easy reader is circulated more than 50 times over its shelf life.
The cost of an average hardback easy reader is approximately $13. The Rotary grant provided Trussville Public Library with 350 easy readers to bring the collection up-to-date. The addition of these titles helps the collection move forward in assisting many children as they learn to read.
Library Director and Trussville Noon Rotary Club President Emily Tish said, “Our Rotary Club is so pleased to be able to support our community through this project and to provide ongoing support to the library.”