Read the title out loud and it makes sense. You’ve probably heard at least the first half on more than one occasion. How do we hear the second half more often? I have a few ideas.

My school has a very diverse population of learners. In the library we try our best to make every student feel comfortable and strive to create a safe, welcoming environment. Due to the layout and room configuration, we are in the heart of the school, with lots of traffic  all day long. It’s a study hall, a hangout spot, a computer lab, and a safe place for many of our students.

To encourage a culture of reading, there is a school-wide D.E.A.R. period (drop everything and read) everyday for 10 minutes after first period. In the library, work to bring in books students want to read and monitor circulation statistics to see what’s in demand and take all this into account when placing orders. We regularly change book displays to reflect holidays, school events, and other community activities. We have online audio books available to all students and actively promote the resource to students and teachers. We also just received 10 iPads so we will be encouraging students to try out ebooks. Making connections with teachers is also important. I have put together many resource lists for various curricular areas and regularly pull materials for teachers to use with their classes.

In my library, I would like to see more connections made with teachers, encouraging more resource-based teaching and collaboration between the library and other staff. I am slowly trying to build relationships, but find many people are just happy to continue as they always have or feel they just don’t have time to try anything new due to heavy curriculum demands. Relationships with students are also key to promoting reading in school. I love talking with students about what they are reading and encouraging them to try different genres or authors. Once our digital library takes off, I think having a “virtual book club” would be great. With the right license, an unlimited number of students could participate via blogs or forums.

I would also like to see more connections made with local authors and other writers. Every year we have the Young Authors’ Conference which brings students together with professional authors for workshops and readings. This is another example of how building relationships can encourage a stronger reading (and writing) culture within my school.

In the future, we will be a mostly digital facility (not all of the books are going thank goodness!). I think we need to proactive now in figuring out how to best encourage students and teachers to learn how to use technologies effectively when it comes to the reading experience. As mentioned above we just received iPads for student use. As I’ve discussed in previous posts, there are a myriad of uses for the iPad that can accommodate students with disabilities (see the Melissa Fortson Youtube clip). One article I found interesting, titled “Exploring the use of the iPad for literacy learning” by Hutichison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford, was based on a case study of a grade 4 classroom using iPads in the classroom. The authors found may positive aspects to using the devices which included encouraging collaboration among students, ease of adapting lessons to meed individual student needs, students used prior knowledge of the technology (didn’t need a lot of support in operating the iPads), and practical benefits such as easy storage. The authors did point out a few downsides, such as the inability to do word-processing with ease, the inevitable “teacher-as-troubleshooter”, and the difficulties in using the touch screen and manipulating text and images (Hutchison et al. 22). The student response to the technology was positive and engaged them in the literacy activities the teacher set out. I think these types of lessons could be very useful for “reluctant readers” and also could encourage more students to seek out books for pleasure, thereby strengthening the reading culture of a school.

Finally, I think that having a more dynamic web presence could enhance the reading culture of my school. If students had an appealing, user-friendly site with information, links, and forums for discussion of library activities, new books, and other related school topics, I think it would be beneficial to our program. It is definitely a challenging, time-consuming project to design, build, and maintain a great site, but with the right promotion and collaboration with teachers, it could become an important part of our school community.

I’m including a short clip from an elementary school in New Zealand that has created an incredible culture of reading through staff collaboration, technology, and encouragement of student choice, independence, and ownership of the space. The principal also mentions that because of the success of the library, the reading scores school wide are higher than average, including those for student groups considered at-risk on a national scale. The enthusiasm of the staff and students is very evident and encouraging.

References

Fortson, Melissa. “Emerging technology as assistive technology: the iPad, accessibility, and libraries.” MSU Emerging Technologies Summit 2011. Mississippi State University Libraries. August 25, 2011. Lecture. Web January 26, 2014.

Hutchison, Amy, B. Beschorner, and D. Schmidt-Crawford. “Exploring the use of the iPad for literacy learning.” The Reading Teacher. 66.1 (2012): 15-23. Web. February 6, 2014.

National Library of New Zealand. “School libraries: the heart of a reading culture – Hurupaki school.” uploaded April 25, 2011. Web. February 5, 2014.

We speak up for children (organization). “Illustration of kids reading books while lying on the lawn.” Web. February 9, 2014.