Kent State undergraduate and graduate students gained workplace experience at a children’s story time event hosted by the School of Library and Information Sciences Marantz Picturebook Collection Center on Friday.

Terri Cardy, a lead teacher at Child Development Center, said story time at the Marantz gives children the opportunity to be exposed to more books and interact with a variety of storytellers.

“We have a lot of books, but this place is huge,” she said. “The more we can expose them to book reading and storytelling is early literacy.”

Cardy said the event was not only extremely beneficial for the children, but for the CDC’s student teachers as well.

“As early childhood teachers, we read to children every day,” Cardy said. “Seeing others reading to children helps the students pick up techniques on how to be engaging with the kids.”

Cardy said student teachers are required to work at CDC their second semester as early childhood education majors as a part of the curriculum.

She said managing groups of children can be a task for student teachers.

“It’s new for them to read to whole groups of children, and it can be a management issue,” Cardy said. “It is often related to how they are approaching what they are offering children.”

Cardy said observing the story time allows student teachers to “look closely” at how readers handle the groups of children, and ultimately help them form their own teaching strategies.

Chelsea Griffin, senior early childhood education major and student teacher, said it was an interesting and enlightening experience for her.

“This was my first time visiting the Marantz and the children’s library,” Griffin said. “It is an amazing place, and my visit helped me gained some ideas on how to approach story reading.”

Griffin said as a student teacher, a part of her responsibilities include documenting experiences with the children, such as the trip to the Marantz.

“We document what they say and what they’re doing to get a better idea of what the children are learning and thinking,” she said. “This documentation focused more on if the children were following along with the book and how they responded to what they observed.”

Five-year-old CDC student Michael Huebner said he enjoyed his time at the Marantz.

“I like story time,” Michael said. “My favorite part is being able to look at the book and hear the book.”

Meghan McGarry, junior early childhood education major and student teacher, said observing the reading showed her ways she could better herself when reading to the children.

“I noticed that pointing out little details and asking questions while reading is effective,” McGarry said. “Being animated is also good to catch and keep the children’s attention.”

Tina Lewis, graduate student in the SLIS program, conducted the first storybook reading for the CDC children.

“This is my first time reading to a group of children like this, but I read to my own” Lewis said. “ You have to remember to read slowly and always ask questions.”

Lewis said reading for the children is something that is great practice for her future career.

“It teaches you to be patient,” she said.

Contact Dominique Todd at [email protected].