Blog Post #5  (Lisa L. Smith)

“Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library”

Reading Essentials     by:  Reggie Routman

“The availability of reading materials greatly impacts children’s literacy development.”  This is one of the most important points in the chapter.  Children must have access to good books of all kinds to develop the love of reading.  Helping students find books that interest them is essential in developing young readers.  The section on light reading and its importance hit very close to home for me.  Not necessarily with my four year olds, but my concern that my children did not necessarily want to read books that challenged them at their Lexile levels as they progressed through school.  They were more interested in books that appealed to them.  The importance of developing a love for reading far outweighs whether the book is “hard enough” for them. 

Creating a class library is challenging sometimes.  How do you organize it?  Can the students understand the structure of the organization (especially the younger ones)?  But organization is as important as including different genres (especially non-fiction, which is not typically featured in classroom libraries).  It is also extremely important to make classroom libraries appealing and comfortable.  No one wants to read in a cramped and uncomfortable environment.  We want the children to choose the library as their top destination.  Involving the students in the library design and organization can help give them ownership.  It can also help us look at how they see things and how the books can be most accessible and useful to them. 

Book display is also important.  The books must entice the reader to open them and look inside.  If all the students can see is the spine, the books do not beckon the reader.  There are multiple ways to organize the books in the classroom from rain gutters to baskets to bins.  The main point is that the books are displayed in a way that the children can see them, touch them, and choose them. 

I do have a classroom library.  I have it organized in bins, but it does not tend to stay organized as much as I would like.  However, because of our CDEP guidelines, I also have book bins in every single center.  This has been highly effective.  The children may be “playing in centers or interest areas”, but they pick books in the math center basket about counting and shapes.  The look at books in the science center about kinds of animals or dinosaurs or weather.  They look at books about buildings and structures in the block center and attempt to build the structures.  I think the classroom library is extremely important, but I have also found it highly effective to include book bins in every center.  It is amazing to watch the children choose the books, while engaging in play.  I must be honest, I wasn’t sure they would and was pleasantly surprised to see that they do.