Top Shelf

At last week’s Library Expo, I attended a session called Reaching Beyond Library Shelves, where three librarians from Plano ISD described things that they do that help expand the library program into the community.

Glenda Welch uses a program called Books of Hope. Books of Hope is a service-learning program where U.S. schools select a sister school abroad and create books to help meet the students’ educational needs. Each year her students write, write, illustrate and bind books about various topics, including science, math, geography, reading, grammar, etc. These books are kept in the library during the school year, then packed up in May and sent overseas to their sister school that has been assigned to them through Books of Hope.  Glenda says students really enjoy making these books for students overseas. It fosters empathy and social responsibility in them and enhances literacy for the students in their sister school.

A program for students in need closer to home is provided by Jayme Karen. Jayme’s school population does not have a lot of books at home, so she started the Book Bazaar. The Book Bazaar is a community book drive  to provide free books for students to read during the summer months when they are not in school. Jayme’s goal is for each child to receive at least one book from the Book Bazaar. She solicits donations from the families and the community at large. She has also obtained books from the Half Price Books Donations Storefront, where free books are available to educators and other non-profit groups on Saturdays from 9am-2pm.

The third program described in this session was Catch the Reading Wave. This was a summer library program created by Kelly Hamilton. Kelly’s school is in an area that isn’t serviced by a public library, so she volunteers her time and has her school library open one morning a week during the months of June and July. Students come to check out books and participate in activities led by other volunteers, such as teachers, other librarians, district office staff, firemen, police officers and other community volunteers. The volunteers read aloud to the children and lead activities that go along with the book selections.

Other ideas that were provided during the discussion portion of the session were to host a day at your public library and to check out firstbook.org, which gives grants to Title I schools to provide books for students.

What are some ways that you have reached out and provided services to your community through your school library program?

Image citations: Books Bazaar by Kenzoka and Summer Reading 4 by KOMUnews

Have you read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins? If you haven’t, put it at the top of your summer reading list! It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time and I’m dying to get my hands on the sequel, Catching Fire. It won’t be out officially until September, which is why I can really relate to the guy in the cartoon below. I’d do almost anything to get my hands on an Advanced Reader Copy!

The Hunger Games official web site

How do you prepare for a read aloud session for young students? Do you grab the nearest book off the shelf as the class is walking in the door? Is your main criteria for choosing a book that “the kids will like it”? Or do you purposefully choose a book that will offer students an opportunity to talk and do some thinking? Does it matter? Based on information I received this morning, I think it does.

District coordinators and campus administrators met today to discuss the mid-year results of TPRI (Texas Primary Reading Inventory) testing. The data that we saw points to a district-wide need for a much stronger focus on comprehension instruction for our K-2 students.

This is a skill that elementary librarians can easily address through read aloud sessions in the library, if the read alouds are planned with that purpose in mind.

Asking thoughtful and purposeful questions after reading aloud is key to making sure that students are comprehending in a meaningful way. Planning the questions you will ask can make a huge difference in the learning that occurs while students are in the library. Questions that require students to actually cite evidence from the text will show if they have truly understood or not.

What are some other ways that librarians can help students develop comprehension skills?

Image citation: Question mark by Margaret Anne Clark.

The New York Times is publishing a series of articles looking at how the Internet and other technologies are changing the way people read.

This week’s article, In Web Age, Library Job Gets Update focuses on school libraries and the role school librarians play in teaching kids information skills for the 21st century. There is also a great video that emphasizes the idea that today’s school librarians believe that “literacy includes, but also exceeds, books.”

Previous articles examined the debate over the value of reading on the Internet versus reading in print and how educators are using video games as bait to lure children to read.

All are worth a read.

According to Computerworld, e-book sales are about to ignite and be totally mainstream by this time next year. Why? Author Mike Elgan gives six reasons:

1. The economy. The economy is in the tank, and people are looking to cut costs any way they can. An Amazon Kindle pays for itself after the purchase of 20 or 30 books, then starts paying dividends. You save big on books, magazines and newspapers. These savings will grow even more attractive as the recession deepens.

2. The environment. Interest in protecting the environment just keeps growing and growing. The idea of getting a daily newspaper or a weekly or monthly magazine on paper seems incredibly wasteful to the point of decadence. Environmental consciousness will drive e-book acceptance.

3. A publishing revolution. The book publishing industry is one of the most backward, musty, obsolete businesses in our economy. While every other kind of information moves at the speed of light, the process of publishing a book is like something from the Middle Ages.

4. The rise in aggressive e-book marketing. Like the move from silent pictures to “talkies,” the transition to electronic publishing will prove fatal to laggards. Those aggressively pursuing and developing e-books will rise to take control of the publishing industry. Part of this revolution will happen in e-book marketing.

5. A rise in books written for electronic reading. The shift from print to electronic will change the nature of the book itself. Many books will be shorter. They’ll be more timely and culturally relevant. They’ll be more colorfully and engagingly written. And they’ll go after young readers like nothing before.

6. The decline of the newspaper industry. And, finally, the newspaper industry is dying. The old method of physically delivering blog entries on dead tree pulp is obsolete. It’s very simple. Newspapers that embrace e-books will survive. Those that don’t, won’t.

Read the full article here.

What does this mean for school libraries? We are committed to providing materials to students in all formats. The Kindle, with its open internet access, can’t currently be used with students, but Elgan’s article says that Amazon plans to offer Kindle books on cell phones. The Google Book Search blog stated last week that its 1.5 miliion public domain books will also soon be available on mobile devices. How long will it be before we are able to provide electronic books to our students on their ever-present (but currently banned) cell phones?

Leave a comment with your thoughts.

(Thanks to Joyce Valenza for the link.)

Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a “go to” place for educator-created media that promotes books, reading and literacy? Well, some of the great thinkers in our profession have. Not only have they been thinking about it, someone (Joyce Valenza) has done something about it.

Bookvideoning.com is a new portal where teachers, librarians and students can share media (in any digital format) to promote books, reading, and literacy K-12.

In my travels around the web, I have seen lots of great video book trailers, Voicethreads, Animotos, and other digital storytelling efforts. What a fabulous idea to have them all collected in one online space.

I encourage you to participate and upload your creations. Here is my contribution.

This is part 2 of Teri Lesesne’s presentation at Region 10 on Monday.

On Monday, I was fortunate to be able to spend the whole day listening to booktalks presented by the master – Dr. Teri Lesesne of Sam Houston State University. Teri talked about books and reading to a rapt audience of teachers and librarians at Region 10. I think we all left amazed at the amount of reading/listening that she does, as well as her ability to recall in detail so many plots right down to individual character names. I also left with a list of books to read as long as your arm!

Here is part one of the slideshow from the presentation, which she shared in her blog today:

In addition to learning about all kinds of young adult books, I was also interested to learn about Teri’s experience with the Amazon Kindle. She even passed it around and let us look at it. If you’re not familiar, the Kindle is Amazon.com’s e-book reader. It can hold up to 200 books (or more with an SD card) and only weighs about

10 ounces! The screen is hard to explain, but it is just like reading on paper – no glare at all. There is also no backlight, so you can read it inside or in the sunlight. It includes a dictionary you can access as you are reading and a “clippings” feature where you can highlight passages and save them. This little gadget is definitely going on my Christmas list!

Banned Books Week (BBW) will be celebrated September 27–October 4, 2008. Observed since 1982, this annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.

Every year, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas polls all Texas school districts to compile the list of the banned books in the state. In partnership with TLA, the ACLU of Texas promotes the Banned Books report to inform the public of statewide challenges to reading materials.

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

The final Banned Books report will be available during BBW at the ACLU of Texas website (www.aclutx.org/projects/bannedbooks.php).

The New York Times has a very pertinent article that all of us who are interested in the teaching of literacy should read. The article debates the merits of online reading as a means to literacy.

As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

Take a look at the article then post your thoughts in the comments. Should we be teaching kids how to read effectively online as well as in print?

Image citation: Study uploaded on June 17, 2008 by Spintwig under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.