Melissa Wells Blog Post 4: Routman Ch. 5

After labeling 2200 books in the past few weeks, I'd say classroom libraries have been in the back of my mind pretty non-stop recently!!  :-)

I love how Routman calls classroom libraries a "literary necessity" (p. 64).  Not only do we have to entice readers with thoughtfully-organized libraries, but we also must entice them with personalized invitations to read.  Those invitations might be in the form of new books based on students' interest, or something as simple as daily book talks.  What would happen if we took 30 seconds a day to do a book talk on the announcements to share with the school?  Over the course of a year, kids would have "met" 180 new book friends!

Routman also values "light reading" as "essential for turning our struggling readers into competent readers" (65).  I know we feel like we have so many standards to cover and high-stakes testing at the end of the year that we always have to push our readers, but "light reading" is still reading that helps grow readers.  I used to love hooking my 3rd graders on series books.  Now that I think about it, I was also a series reader as a kid--The Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, The Boxcar Children, The Saddle Club--all were books I would devour!  I think the predictability of the books and the characters became like an old friend, which was comforting to me.

While putting 2200 stickers on books may have been tedious work, I think you all have the harder job right now.  How will you add these books into your existing collections?  How will you make your books easy to access?  How will you appeal to the unique interests of each reader in your room?  How will you focus on students' interests and de-emphasize levels?  How will you involve your readers in co-creating this library space?  How will you create a library care system (including checking out and returning books)?  How will you create a community of readers in your room?  You each have shared some marvelous ideas with me (in blog or human interactions), and I can't wait to see your renewed libraries taking shape.  :-)