I loved learning about ways to organize and create an
outstanding classroom library. As a first year teacher, having a library that
provided enough choice to my students was a large concern for me. I raided
garage sales and clearance shelves, but still felt as though my library was
inadequate for the wide interests of my students. In addition to the wide
interests of my students, I never realized how large of a range of reading
ability they would have. I have students that span over 8 grade level grades
for reading ability. Providing choice to students at every level is a
challenge. Finding a way to organize those books is yet another.
I liked the idea in this chapter about creating a top ten
book list for the class. This is something I feel my students could take
interest in and ownership of. I don’t know if I could yet commit to doing it
every week as described in the chapter, but I think setting a goal of once a
month would be obtainable for my students. I also enjoyed the idea of having
the students set up and organize the classroom library. While this would
require me relinquishing a lot of control as a teacher, I would be willing to
try it with my students next year just to see how it all played out.
Clearly you got a lot of useful information out of this chapter. It is challenging to build a classroom library but as an elementary school teacher, I believe it is something we are never truly done with especially if we are in tune with our students as readers. Therefore, your student input will be vital every year which is why I always used Scholastic book clubs. By encouraging students and families to get books through Scholastic, we were able to use points to add to our classroom library. I also was able to by reasonably priced book sets that helped feed my book club initiative. Monthly 10 ten book lists definitely sounds doable and would be a great way to provide motivation to your readers. Let me know when you give it a go--I'd love to see how it works out!
ReplyDeleteYou have some great ideas to try here! I have worked with several classes to reorganize their classroom libraries. It is hard to "let go" of that organizational control, but the kids get so much out of it. It is their library now! They start hoarding books as they go through all the books too, which is pretty fun. :-)
ReplyDelete