How is reading culture fostered in my school?

I feel like many aspects of creating a reading culture are small everyday items such as making an inviting space where students want to read as well as making books visible and interesting through displays and bulletin boards. It is also through library times in talking about books freely  where students can witness an adult’s enthusiasm for books. The shelving of books in my Library Learning Commons (LLC) has been adapted to ease access and browsing for students through categorizing and genrefying. I’ve also given older students responsibilities in the library so they take ownership and pride in the space and books. I’ve tried book recommendations in several forms. Additionally, students give me book recommendations, I follow-through and get the book. Also, for the older students, I have made library passes so book exchanges can be done when they need or they can come to the library to work or read quietly if there is space available. There is a lot that I already do, big and small, through the LLC, but there is always more that I want to do whether it’s in the back of my mind or something I have not heard of yet.

Current programs that foster a culture of reading at my school:

Several of the programs utilized at my school are actually District-wide. We have a very active group of Teacher-Librarians who meet every month to make sure that our LLCs are fairly aligned in what is offered and promoted; we share good books that we have found and organize activities.

D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) is a District-wide initiative from the BCTLA. We do this in October and it is a day that we try to involve a larger community, inviting parents to come at the end of the day to read with their children. In the past few years, I have tried to plan this as a bit of an event, having a P.J. day and during D.E.A.R. students can read with students from other classes throughout the school; we put mats out in the gym and the library is fully available. It is a fun time and I like how it gets students mingling with others in a positive way. This year, I have been thinking how it can be adjusted; it could still be P.J. day but we cannot invite parents and students will have to stay in their own classes. Maybe I can read to the entire school on the P.A. or over Zoom or a similar program?

All of the school in our district also celebrate Family literacy week. We try to do activities that fit with the yearly theme. One of the most successful events has been the school-wide games day. We put out mats in the gym and have a different game on each mat. Teachers sign-up throughout the day with a buddy class and students play board games for 30 minutes. It is a really good community-building activity and it’s great to see the older students helping the younger ones.

Battle of the Books is another event sponsored by our District Teacher Librarians. It is for grades 3-5 and there is a selection of 5 books for each grade level. For each grade level, students make teams, read all of the novels, make a team poster, cheer and costume. Teams “battle” by answering recall questions from the selected books. We have a school battle (all student from the school in each grade level), zone battle (teams from 3 different schools that won the school battle) and then a district battle with winners of the zone battles. Each year, the Teacher Librarians discuss if this is something we want to continue as the questions do not require “higher-level” thinking and possibly the competitive aspect turn some students off but we keep doing it. I think it will continue because it encourages students to read high quality books that they may not normally choose and gets some of the “competitive types” to read more when they normally wouldn’t. As well, it is good for students to go to other schools and interact with students from those schools.

Each year the library also hosts a Scholastic Book Fair. This is an event that students look forward to and remember. It gets them excited to read new books, especially when there’s a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid or something like that. I try to make it quite an event by having a raffle, following the yearly theme by decorating the library and dressing up. I show the Book Fair trailers at library times the week before to expose the students to new books that they may not be familiar with. All students come for a browsing time before anybody can buy anything so they all feel like they have an equal chance. I usually have the Book Fair during student-led conference days so that parents can come with their children throughout the day.

For the past two years we have also had a school-wide read-a-thon. The most successful year we tried to make it a really big deal! We had a kick-off assembly where we challenged the students to read a certain number of minutes collectively and if they met the goal the Principle and Vice Principle would dye their hair pink. Throughout the month students were given a paper log to add to a beaver dam we had displayed in the hallway each time the read 100 minutes. By the end of the month, the logs were spilling out of the bulletin board and on the wall down the hallway. Needless to say, the students met their goal and got to witness the pink hair dying. It was pretty exciting!The next year, we tried again but the promotion was lacking so it was like it didn’t even happen. This past spring, another teacher did her own read-a-thon where she added dog bones to a bowl on her class website for students to see. I could also add something like this to a Library Learning Commons blog.

In addition to the larger activities and events, I try to constantly promote literature, books and reading to students. I find if books are “featured”, students tend to choose them more. An idea I got from a professional development workshop from another attendee was “Mo-vember” where Mo Willems books are featured. I read a different book Mo book for each library time and although we have many of his books, I could barely keep them in the library. I noticed my own daughter (who attends the same school) who was in grade 1 at the time, started reading more independently because of it. Once the month was over, the circulation of these books went down as well. For this coming year, I would like to come up with more ideas like this one to feature different kinds of books or authors.

New tools, strategies and resources to encourage and support a school-wide reading program

Author visits:

I know this is not necessarily a “new tool, strategy or resource” per se but I would really like to have more author visits in some shape or form. Just one time since becoming a TL, I have organized an author visit. It was fun because we studied the book before the author visit so that all students were familiar with the book. I would like to organize more author visits but I’m not sure the best avenue to take. I heard that it is best to ask authors to visit when there is some sort of conference close by. Since I live on Vancouver Island, it has been suggested to try to ask presenters from the Vancouver Island Children’s Bookfest.  Even if I could have a virtual author visit it would be cool. I heard of Authors Who Skype for free and have looked at the website in the past and at the time I found it very overwhelming because of all the authors listed with many I had not heard of before. In my search this time I found this site https://www.smore.com/1mzu1-authors-who-skype-free. I think this will come in handy because this person has already made a list of her favourites. I followed the link for Kate Messner because I thought I recognized the name and I do know her books, yippee! (Side note, some of you may be disappointed in me as a TL for not connecting her name with her books right away but I’ve always been bad at remembering author’s names, I remember book titles like crazy but for some reason the author’s names don’t always stick! This is something I need to get better at!).
This might be a good year to try to organize more virtual author visits. I am always up for more suggestions about how to do this if anyone knows more resources for virtual author visits, or if you have organized any before, how did it go?

One School, One Book:

https://readtothem.org/programs/one-school-one-book/

A strategy I would like to try is “One School, One Book” where the entire school reads one story and then plans activities that relate to particular aspects of the book. I heard of this strategy at a professional development workshop at the Superconference a couple of years ago and just haven’t had a chance to try it out because it would need school-wide buy-in and preparation. The workshop facilitator who I heard of this strategy from simply gave an outline of what it entails and did not tell me about the website; I didn’t know about the website until writing this blog post and decided to do an internet search! The website doesn’t give quite as much information about the structure of the program (I think they want you to buy the entire program) but I have been thinking about how I would organize it.

For example, I was thinking about using a book like Wonder because it has multiple “off-shoots” of the text. So, intermediate classes might read the full novel and primary classes might read the picture book version We’re All Wonders:

And then if students are still interested in reading more there is also

No matter what, I think that effective programs that foster reading culture need promotion and a way to make it exciting and fun for students.

In my internet exploration, I found this list: 25 Ways to Build Your School’s Reading Culture.  It was reassuring to read this list as I feel that I do all of these and more. In addition, the activities I am considering are also mentioned on the list.

I really love having a busy library where individuals from the entire school community are involved and I’m always interested in finding more ways to do that.

References:

365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne’s Book of Precepts. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/365-Days-Wonder-Brownes-Precepts/dp/0553499041/ref=sr_1_13?crid=2EKLVI9GGYRL1&dchild=1&keywords=wonder+book+r.j.+palacio&qid=1595367027&sprefix=wonder+book%2Caps%2C227&sr=8-13

Authors who Skype Free!!. (2020). Retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://www.smore.com/1mzu1-authors-who-skype-free

Barrett, L. (2020). 25 Ways to Build Your School’s Reading Culture – WeAreTeachers. Retrieved 24 July 2020, from https://www.weareteachers.com/build-reading-culture/

BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association. (2020). Retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://bctla.ca/

Booth, H. (2018). How To Run a Successful Kids Book Club. Retrieved 24 July 2020, from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=run-successful-kids-book-club

Kate Messner. (2020). Retrieved 23 July 2020, from https://www.katemessner.com/

Pixabay. (2020). Banner-header-book-shelf-books [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/banner-header-book-shelf-books-1559400/

Read To Them. (2020). Retrieved 21 July 2020, from https://readtothem.org/programs/one-school-one-book/

We’re All Wonders. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=we+are+all+wonders&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Wonder. (2020). [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=wonder+book+r.j.+palacio&crid=2EKLVI9GGYRL1&sprefix=wonder+book%2Caps%2C227&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-o-p_5_11