#18: Beginning readers come in all ages →

From Emma:

Figuring out something we can do for adult beginning readers has been a challenge for me at my current job. We have, more or less, three groups of people who would want to use them: native English speakers who didn’t become proficient English readers as children, native Spanish speakers who didn’t become proficient Spanish readers as children, and native Spanish speakers who are proficient Spanish readers but who are just starting to learn to read in English. We have a lot more resources for groups 1 and 3 in our system than we have for group 2 (this is, of course, a theme in many American library services).

Something that’s cool about the Dallas Public Library is that there is a whole department dedicated to adult learning, and one of the things they cover is reading education for adults. We display a poster about their services in our branch library, which I appreciate not only because it advertises the service but also because it says to adults learning to read “hey, we know you guys exist and we want to help you” before they even talk to a staff member.

So when I was thinking about what we could do for these patrons, the first thing I did was call up the team that administers the adult literacy program and find out from them who they could and couldn’t assist. It turns out they currently only work with English speakers (of intermediate to fluent level), and that their services are targeted at adults who are at an elementary-school reading level or below. That lets me know that my branch should probably focus on Spanish-speaking beginning readers, since we don’t really have other options for them in the system.

Putting together a reading list of appropriate Spanish-language material is tough, since our collection is frankly not all that great. Like many American public libraries, we buy our materials solely through a large book vendor that mostly works only with major American publishers, so their Spanish-language offerings are not great. Since we have also pretty much outsourced our cataloging and pre-processing to that vendor, it’s hard to order things from other companies to add to our collection since we don’t have much of a structure in place for getting them shelf-ready. As an individual staff member, there’s not a lot I can do about that. We have had a few management team meetings where we have talked about the collection and where it is or is not meeting patrons’ needs, and I have brought up this problem (I’m certainly not the only one to do that) but beyond reminding library administration how important it is, I’m stuck with what we have.

Ironically, one of the limitations of our Spanish collections I think is actually a strength for new adult readers. Because our Spanish collections are so small, most branches, including mine, interfile their teen materials with their adult materials. It's not good service to teens who want to read in Spanish, but I think it’s good for adult patrons who might not be able to handle a book targeted at completely fluent readers. Without making themselves conspicuous by going into a separate area, they can choose a book targeted at teens that has simpler vocabulary, more concrete language, and maybe pictures that assist reading comprehension. I especially like this because it helps anyone struggling with reading, not just people who know they are not at an ‘adult’ reading level, since they can all stumble across teen titles ‘organically.’

So, I think what I have left that I can currently do is make a list of suggested titles (ideally one for English and one for Spanish, but starting with Spanish) that we can give to self-identified struggling readers. I am a bit intimidated about making the Spanish one since I am not a fluent reader in Spanish, but my branch currently has a library assistant who is an intermediate Spanish student who might be great for this. She is new to our branch and to librarianship, so I think having her look through the shelves and identify some titles would be a great way for her to get to know our collection, and she can use some of her own limitations as a guide to help identify good candidates for beginning readers. It may be a short list since our collection isn’t very deep, but at least it gives people somewhere to start from.