In this section, I zeroed in on
Miller saying “Fountas and Pinnell (1996) recommend that teachers have between
three hundred and six hundred titles in their classroom libraries. The International Reading Association (1999)
recommends seven books per student. More
importantly, you need materials that address topics that kids want to read
about.” I think this especially important
when providing materials for young children, some of which have not had much exposure
to books in their homes.
When
I first started this year, my classroom library was a weird mix of books that
had been left by other teachers and a few books that were provided along with
the curriculum. I do have a large personal
collection of books at home that are still being used by my children that I
will sometimes bring in to share, but I mostly have used the library to
supplement. I noticed, which I think is
also typical, my students really gravitated towards books about animals. Not just “Brown Bear” and “Pete the Cat”, but
the National Geographic books about animals.
They even fight over them. When I
was given the chance to order books from Scholastic I used most of the money
towards National Geographic books. My
students LOVE them! They are no where
near grade level and I’m sure my students will never be able to read the words,
but I believe the exposure to a book that is fascinating to them is much more
important to them at this age.
My animal book bin in K was always overflowing, both the fiction and nonfiction bins! Like yours, my books were not on a K reading level, but I was always amazed what they got out of the books anyway. I taught them to mark things they wanted to learn more about with a sticky note, and then an adult or a peer helper from an older grade would read that section to them when there was a spare moment. Thank you for knowing your students' reading interests!!
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