Outreach librarian receives grant

Money buys new van, books

Deborah McVay is tooling around five counties in Washington with style.

McVay provides the North Central Regional Library system — covering Grant, Okanogan, Ferry, Chelan and Douglas counties — with outreach services.

It keeps her busy.

McVay visits classes and programs all over Grant County and north central Washington to promote reading to children.

McVay said she does the program year-round, visiting Migrant Head Starts from March or April to October, visiting preschool and elementary special education programs during the school year. She also visits Big Bend Community College's Esperanza Center in Mattawa and the Big Bend Learning Center, most of the Grant County Head Start programs and Warden Preschool.

"I go to the classes and I present story time, and then the classes that ask it, I bring library book collections and change them in the classes," McVay said. "I also do parent meetings for emergent readers and to encourage the life skill of reading to the parents to continue it at home."

McVay also does training for Catholic Family Services, for day care providers and at special events, she said.

"Any of that area covered by North Central Regional Library, I cover that year-round for special events and for the summer reading program," she said. "I do the program in English, Spanish and American Sign Language, and then I have a couple of the programs translated into Russian."

Whew.

With a schedule like that, it's good to receive a little assistance.

And McVay recently received it, in the form of a $50,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

"With that grant we were able to purchase (a) van, an Ellison Die machine that cuts shapes to make connections for kids," she said. "We were able to get thousands of books, including books with their cassettes and we got ten audio centers, so they can actually listen to the language as well."

McVay said the grant also went towards a laptop computer to help her with her work.

"It's been an awesome addition," she said of the grant money. "What has happened is, they recognized our program as being one of the cutting edge programs."

McVay said she began working with the Moses Lake Migrant Center in 1998; the Outreach program has been in existence throughout the five counties that NCRL reaches since 2000.

"It's a one of a kind program in our state, and actually a very different program in the United States," McVay said. "When I went to a public libraries national conference in Seattle, they said, 'We haven't heard of one like this that takes the story time into the classroom (and) brings a book collection.' I go as much as possible, twice a month."

Bringing the program into the classrooms has led to increased vocabulary, concept knowledge, language skills and imagination, McVay said. She said she tries to bring in different elements of the senses, except for taste, to help reach the students.

"I have children that are blind, that are Down Syndrome, that are special needs, but they all seem to take different parts of the program and respond to it, so it was recognized in Olympia with this grant," she said. "It was a very big honor for us, because there were only like five given in the Northwest."

Ted Mack, a life skills special education self-contained teacher at Midway Elementary School, said that, through McVay's program, students are beginning to understand that books have something to say.

"It has taught the kids that reading is a form of communication and when you read books, you're getting information out of it," Mack said. "But (the program also teaches that) it's not just work, that it can be fun, that it can be enjoyable … which is really key because it really motivates them to want to read."

Midway principal Chris Hendricks agreed.

"What I've heard from the classroom teacher is that Deborah's reading to the children really engages them, keeps them very interested in learning and is very much enjoyed by the children," Hendricks said. "The teachers value it because it's a time when somebody else can come in and work with those children and we really appreciate the help that she's given."

Midway special education preschool teacher Jeanne Stevenson is one of the classes that receives a visit from McVay twice a month.

"She is able to bring a lot of books that we don't have, and she is able to bring props, puppets, games and things for the kids to do during her story time that really make the story come alive for them," Stevenson said. "At this age, kids are really visual and concrete, so it really helps them to see the story come alive, in addition to hearing it from the book."