Lisa Edge Blog Post1 (Chpt 5 Routman)

I found this chapter very enlightening, especially the strong correlation between good classroom libraries and higher reading achievement. It was also interesting to know that classroom libraries can help “level the playing field” for low- income students. At Arcadia, we know that many of our students have not had access to many books prior to kindergarten, because of SES and language barriers. Ways in which we can help our students include, having a well-organized, interesting, easily-accessible classroom library, promoting the public library and Imagination Library for students with younger siblings and sending home scholastic flyers. Traditionally, I haven’t had good response from scholastic flyers even though they are a great source of inexpensive books. I decided to keep trying though. This year I had two parents order online for the first time. Maybe as families have more access to technology, they will participate more in the program. I think the key is also getting students excited about the books. Hopefully, they will go home and ask for books and parents will respond.

I don’t think we stress too much in kindergarten about students reading below their level, mostly because there aren’t many books available below kindergarten reading level. But the author points out that kids become better readers no matter what they read. If they enjoy reading, they read more. We all enjoy a little light reading. So do our students. I was surprised to read that while an adequate classroom library will contain two hundred books, an excellent library will have over a thousand books. That sounds like a lot of books! I think I have a good collection of books, however, my library is lacking books that reflect the students’ culture. I need to research more titles that are representative of Hispanic culture. I take my students’ interests into account when purchasing new books, but I haven’t really gotten them involved in the changes and rotations of books.