Classroom Libraries
From the desk of Carol C…
Every classroom needs a library. It’s easy to say but hard to do. I remember collecting books for my first classroom library and then trying to keep it current. Here’s what I did.
When I first began to teach I didn’t have a strong grasp on how to motivate my students to read. One reason was the lack of classroom books or the lack of high quality/appealing books. This is always a tough situation for new teachers especially. I pilfered through old reading books in the book closet, found discarded books at the public library, and received a few books from other teachers. I did use the school library to supplement my collection, but these had to go back every two weeks. Plus, my kids weren’t as interested in books they knew came from the library. I’m still not sure why.
One way I helped build my classroom library was to take advantage of the offers book clubs like Scholastic offer. Any teacher who places orders earns points which then can be used to buy books for collection. Some book clubs offer an online system where parents can register, order, and pay online. When these clubs started offering this, it made my job so much easier!
Some schools where I taught allowed teachers to post a wish list for parents or the PTA to see. I always listed title of specific books I wanted. Once the Internet came into play, I began to ask for gift cards to use at places like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. These huge online bookstores are great for offering millions of books at the click of a mouse.
When I could muster up the courage, I would ask my principal if there was any money which could be used to buy books for my classroom library. I learned to have well thought out reasons as to why I needed the money. In the early days the answer was almost always “yes”. Then when money became less plentiful, my success rate declined. I still asked though, and I asked about system wide funds or national/state grants the system had received. It never hurts to ask if you have a reasonable request you can back up with good reasons.
Writing grants is not just for the experts. I’ve written several successful ones, and I’m not an expert. Literacy grants are all over the web. It takes a while to find the right ones and then fill out the application, but it’s worth it. Once I wrote the first grant, I tweaked it for other grant applications.
Once I begin to receive funds or book club points, I had to decide how often I wanted to order…once a month, quarter, semester, day? I wanted to be on top of the latest books, but I didn’t want to tie myself down to more work too often. I decided on once a month for book club points and once a quarter for any other money. I certainly felt free to deviate from this timeline, however. To decide on which books to order I involved my students in choosing the texts. They needed to have a hand in selecting their reading material. Also, it gave them the opportunity to weigh in on the book selections, and they were my experts. They knew what they wanted to read!
Another decision my students and I had to make was how to categorize these materials in our library. Did they want to organize by author, genre, specific topic, or another category? I questioned them about their choices. I talked with the kids about the different genres, author styles, and how a public library shelves their books. The bottom line was I involved my students in the ordering through shelving of the books. Was this more time consuming than choosing and ordering by myself? Yes, it was, but it provided precious opportunities for authentic learning.
It is vital for every classroom to have a well stocked library. A good one increases the students’ interest in reading and therefore, increases their learning. Letting my students participate in creating our own classroom library gave them the chance to learn from each other and engage in real life conversations about books. Fantastic!