October 2011: The School Library Link to Creating Independent Readers

The beginning of the school year is a great time to reassess how well we are doing at encouraging independence in our young readers. Being an “independent reader” is a two-fold process:

1)    Our children must become proficient readers (with their skills in decoding and understanding words) and

2)    They must become enthusiastic
readers (voluntarily seeking out new and interesting forms of reading).

If children aren’t proficient, they won’t
become confident readers. It is very easy to get discouraged if the act of reading is too difficult. Proficiency only happens with practice, practice, practice. However, if children aren’t enthusiastic readers, their motivation to read on their own just isn’t there. Without enthusiasm, practice doesn’t happen. Where classroom and reading teachers teach children how to read, school librarians teach children why to read; enthusiasm for reading then supports proficiency, and that’s where the school library comes in.

A school library is truly a wonderful place to foster enthusiasm for reading in children. It is unlike a bookstore and unlike the public library in that regard. Each school library collection is developed especially for that school’s population in mind. School librarians spend many hours collecting professional reviews, reading books, analyzing their student population, and especially listening to their students to find and purchase the books that will foster enthusiastic reading in their students. In that sense, no two school libraries are alike. School library collections are created and changed to fit each student population. We want students to go to their school library and say, “Hey, that’s just what I was looking for!”

Supporting Proficiency in Children

There are many ways that parents can support their child’s reading proficiency.

1)    Read aloud to your children often. Reading aloud should begin in the toddler years, so that children hear more words, see pages turning, and notice that a story accompanies those words. Older children benefit from being read to as well. Children can learn new vocabulary, listen to how parents use inflection to tell a story, and most importantly, witness reading being modeled by their most important adult.

2)    Help your child find books they can read easily without getting frustrated. Following the “Five Finger Rule” is a good practice. If your child reads a page in a book and more than five words on the page are
difficult, then that book is probably
too hard for them to read
comfortably.

Fostering Reading Enthusiasm

Parents also play a big role in giving children the freedom to get excited about books.

1)    Encourage children to read whatever they like. Pleasure reading should be just that: pleasurable. If your child begins a book and doesn’t like it, give him or her the permission to put it down and find one they do.

2)    Withhold judgment about books you may not care for, but that your child is really excited about. Humorous fiction, graphic novels, and nonfiction are three genres that often get reluctant readers excited about reading. They also seem to attract the statement “That’s not real reading.” Anything your child reads enthusiastically will help them read more, and then read for life.

3)    3) Let your child attempt something “too hard” every once in a while. Many times carrying home that Harry Potter novel just feels good, even though it may be violating the “five finger rule.”  Experi-
mentation in reading choices is part of the process, and it helps your child begin to figure out what they like to read, what they can read, and how to work up to that big book that all the other kids are reading.

 Encourage your child to visit their school library and ask about what they checked out this week, because the school library is the link to creating independent readers.       The School Library is the link to creating independent readers!

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Web Sites to Help Parents Raise Independent Readers

 “Helping your Child Become a Reader,” a booklet by the U.S. Department of Education http://1.usa.gov/bw9cwl

Scott Foresman Family Times Reading Booklets,
http://bit.ly/pELuC9

Links to Reading and Literacy Skills,
http://1.usa.gov/b9oZn7

Breaking the Sound-It-Out Barrier,
http://bit.ly/pqiCre

Succeed to Read, http://www.succeedtoread.com/

June 2011: The School Library Link to Avoiding Summer Slide

Summer is great time to relax and recharge, but it can also be a time when our students lose some of what they learned during the school year. “Summer slide” refers to this very process. Here are some resources that help describe how summer reading can really make a difference in combating summer slide.

The New York Times Parents Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson (Three Rivers Press, 2000). This book is a great way to get acquainted with the 1,001 best children’s books of the 20th century. Easy to access according to age-level.

McGill-Franzen, A., & Allington R. (2003 May/June) "Bridging the Summer Reading Gap." Instructor, 112 no. 8.
     In this article, educational researchers from the University of Florida cite research suggesting that children who read as few as six books over the summer break can maintain their reading skills at a level achieved in the preceding school year.  Making a plan to read just six books this summer could help your kids get a head start in September.
Read the article online:
http://tinyurl.com/25hkell


Miller, B. M.  (2007) “The Learning Season: The Untapped Power of Summer to Advance Student Achievement.” Nellie Mae Education Foundation, 1-70.

    Dr. Beth Miller provides an in-depth overview of the existing educational research on summer learning, which is described as the major factor in explaining the achievement gap between middle-class and disadvantaged students by the end of elementary school.  Increasing summer learning can be as easy as a trip to the public library once a week.
Read the article online:
http://tinyurl.com/5ntwgr

Best Books for Children: Preschool Through Grade 8 by Catherine Burr and John R. Gillespie (ABC-CLIO, 2010). This book, currently in its 9th edition, brings togther information on nearly 25,000 of the best fiction and nonfiction titles for children. This whopping book also comes at a whopping price, (about $95.00): Ask your local public librarian if they have it in their reference collection!  

* * *

Find Great Books and Support
Your Child’s Summer Reading Habit

2011 Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program

Barnes and Noble has an online summer reading program where kids can earn a free book after they read and keep a journal on eight other ones! Journals can be turned in at any B&N store. This year’s theme is “Imagination Destination” and  there is a Parent Activity kit available for free download to support your child’s efforts.
Check it out here:
http://tinyurl.com/35cncej

Reading Rockets Summer Reading Tips
Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read and how parents and teachers can help. Reading Rockets is an educational initiative of WETA and is funded by a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. This page on ReadingRockets.com includes a summer reading webcast, parent tips, recommended summer reading, and much more!  Visit http://tinyurl.com/2ercoxl

2011 Notable Children's Books

Each year a committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) identifies the best of the best in children's books! Check out some award-
winners and other highly recommended
books for kids here:
http://tinyurl.com/yk9u6te

Three Ways to Prevent Summer Slide

This article on Scholastic.com covers how to select books that your kids will be excited about reading and the importance of reading aloud.
Read the article online:
http://tinyurl.com/23hetx3

May 2011: The School Library Link to Lifelong Reading

One of the most important goals of the school library is to help students develop a love of reading, so that it becomes a lifelong habit. And one of the ways this is achieved is to properly match each individual student with their reading interests and goals. How do we do this? It really depends on the student.
     Some students naturally and genuinely love fiction. And that’s great! Fiction is an enjoyable and educational genre, and reading it certainly supports the goals of developing reading skills and doing better in school overall. However, not every student likes fiction. And that’s okay too. Fiction is a major focus in most language arts curriuclums, so students will always get exposed to literature. But if some students don’t particularly care for fiction, and they see no other opportunities for what adults consider “real reading,” they might start to say “I don’t like to read.” That’s where the school library can serve as an important resource.
     The school library is great place to find alternate forms of reading. School librarians strive to develop their collections so that they appeal and serve wide variety of students and needs. Nonfiction, for example, is an important genre and students enjoy reading nonfiction for pleasure. This includes books, magazines, and online content. A student who reads nonfiction voraciously is going to develop their reading skills as much as a student who reads a lot of fiction. With nonfiction, there is always something for everyone. Students who say, “I don’t like to read because there is nothing I like to read about,” simply have not been introduced to the right book or magazine in their particular area of interest. No matter if it’s sports, video games, jokes, animals, babysitting--whatever--every students has something they are interested in and there is something written about it that they will enjoy reading. School librarians aim to match every student with their perfect form of reading. If students enjoy what they are reading, and have the freedom to choose what they read for pleasure, reading will become a lifelong habit.

Ways to Help Your Child Love Reading
1) Ask your school librarian for help. The school librarian can connect your child with books either in the school library or at the local public library.
2) Try out a book database. There are great features on databases, like the NoveList series by EBSCO (www.ebscohost.com/novelist/), that allow you to search for similar books to ones your child liked before. NoveList is often available through your school or public library and contains both fiction and nonfiction books.
3) Check out bookwizard.scholastic.com. This user-friendly database by Scholastic can help you search for books by reading level, type of book, genre and more.

* * *

Connecting with E-Books

E-books are really booming at outlets such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, which sell dedicated e-readers to read their e-books, such as Kindle (Amazon) and Nook (Barnes and Noble). Each is a flat, light device that allows you to purchase and read e-books easily and quickly. With the onset of iPad (by Apple) e-reading has really taken off. But e-books are also available for download on your computer, and even to your smartphone. Most smartphones, such as iPhone, Blackberry, and Android have apps that support each of these retailers. These tools offer great opportunities for students to carry whole libraries with them wherever they go, a wonderful tool for a lifelong reader.
    Did you know that you can borrow e-books from many public libraries too? This is a great resource for those of us who cannot afford to buy every book they want to read! Many public libraries subscribe to a service called OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), which allows libraries to lend out e-books to patrons. You borrow the e-book online, download it to your compatible device (smartphone, computer or e-reader), and it is available usually for about two weeks (when it self-deletes). The catch with loaned e-books, though, is that you usually cannot borrow the same book twice, so you have to read it when you download it. Still, library-loaned e-books are a great way to put whatever you want to read right in your pocket. Check out your local public library to see if they subscribe to OverDrive or another e-book service!

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The Link to Free Voluntary Reading

Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) is a term used by Stephen Krashen, author of The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research (Libraries Unlimited, 2004). It refers to a type of reading program in which students are encouraged to select and read books of their own choosing. Sounds simple, right? Well, so often students aren’t allowed to choose their own reading, either because of curriculum requirements for a class or because they’ve been told--directly or indirectly--that what they want to read isn’t “real reading.”
    For example, have you ever had the urge to say to your child, “Put that book back, you need a book with more words.” Or, “That book is too easy for you, pick another.” Sometimes the best thing we can do is allow children to read what they want to read for pleasure. So what if it’s “too easy?” As adults, do we really read difficult books on the beach? Supporting the enjoyment of reading is as important as encouraging improving reading skills. If students get the message that what they enjoy to read isn’t considered “real reading,” they may start saying, “I don’t like to read.” But FVR not only supports reading enjoyment, it’s been linked to improving reading scores too. Check out Krashen’s book to learn more!

* * *

Read Together, Read Aloud

Most reading specialists and organizations (such as The Children’s Reading Foundation, www.readingfoundation.org) recommend that parents read aloud to their children 20 minutes a day from infancy on. To learn more about the benefits of reading aloud, not only to young children, but also to older kids--especially in the classroom--check out Jim Trelease’s book, The Read-Aloud Handbook (Penguin, 2006). As Trelease describes on his Web site, “This is not a book about teaching a child how to read; it’s about teaching a child to want to read,” (http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-intro-pg2.html). Read up on reading. If you're excited about it, then your children will be too.

March 2011: The School Library Link to Information Access

If there is one thing the library has always been about, it’s information access. The difference in the 21st century is that information access covers a whole lot more territory than just books and magazines. Today students have to be able to navigate many different types of information systems. This includes being able to find and use books in a library, but also being able to find and use information online, in databases, and more. What is the first stop to to learning how to navigate any information system? That’s right, it’s the school library.

 What’s the Big Deal with Dewey?

The Dewey Decimal System is probably the first information system that students learn how to navigate. Learning how to find books using this system has always been taught in school libraries. Although school librarians have expanded their repertoires into teaching other systems as well, they always start with Dewey. The Dewey Decimal System is used in most school libraries and most public libraries in the U.S. It’s also important to learn because once you learn how to navigate the Dewey system, it makes it easier to learn the next one. Because guess what? Dewey is not the only game in town.

Moving on: Library of Congress Classification

Look out graduating seniors, here’s a tip: When you get to college, you won’t see the Dewey Decimal System anymore. Most universities and colleges in the U.S. use a different system: The Library of Congress Classification (LOC) system. LOC call numbers use a combination of letters and numbers, they are arranged by topic, and they are arranged in a logical order. However, the long call numbers look very different from Dewey ones. But because your student has learned how to navigate Dewey for 12 years, he or she will be primed and ready to naturally migrate over to LOC when they get to college.

 Just the Beginning

Finding books on a shelf is certainly just the beginning. School librarians now teach students how to access all kinds of information online. Students need to learn about using keywords, using controlled vocabularies, how to use Boolean search terms, as well as how to find and use the best tool for the job. Elementary and middle school students will be using search engines and databases for the rest of their lives, but the trouble is they are all a little bit different from one another. But just like learning to use Dewey, the search engines, Web sites, and databases students learn to use in school will help them to learn new and different ones as they move forward in education. Continue on to page two to read more about how the school library is the link to information access. C

* * *

Where Do You Go? Information Systems for Young Students

Databases

Databases are programs that hold large amounts of information, usually in the form of short articles from magazines, journals, and newspapers. Databases for elementary and middle school students often contain visual aides to help students search for information by topic. Two popular databases for kids are Kids InfoBits and FactMonster.

 Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs)

Also known as an online library catalog, OPACs come in many shapes and formats. Many OPAC systems are now designing visually appealing and easier-to-navigate home pages where students can “point and click” their way to finding the books they want in the library. For example, a popular program used in schools is Destiny (by Follett); its counterpart, DestinyQuest has a visual interface, rather than a textual one, so that even beginning readers can use the program effectively. Many public libraries are now expanding or revising their online catalog systems to include “kid-friendly” options.

 Search Engines

Although most search engines are user-friendly, some companies have created ones specifically for use by students. Some include:

Yahoo! Kids       http://kids.yahoo.com/

Typical Yahoo! searching with popular links for kids by topic

KidsClick!           www.kidsclick.org

A search engine featuring keyword searching, searching by topic, and a unique feature great for connecting online research to books in the school library: searching by Dewey Decimal numbers!

Kidspace             www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/

Homework and research-centered links divided by categories; also has keyword searching

Google Search Tools

Google is a user-friendly search engine in itself, but it also has additional search features that are useful for both children and adults. Google Wonder Wheel adds a visual component to searching (see above). Google Timeline allows you to search for material on a topic by date (see left). To use these tools, start a Google search, and then click on the features on the left-side menu.

February 2011: The School Library Link to Copyright, Collaboration, and Creativity

Spanish edition: http://www.theschoollibrarylink.com/storage/thelink_vol2_issue5_spanish.pdf

Three things that the school library can assist with are copyright, collaboration, and creativity? That’s right! In fact, the school library can incorporate these three elements in many different ways.

Download the February 2011 issue here!Copyright: Old and New
Copyright has always been one of the librarian’s areas of expertise. School librarians’ roles with copyright have traditionally been to teach students to respect copyright (and not break the law), how to write without plagiarizing, and how to cite sources. School librarians have also helped teachers understand where copyright applies in education. For example, is it permissible to show a video during class without getting permission from the copyright holder? Under what circumstances? How much material can you photocopy from a book and then distribute to students?
     School librarians help with these issues by teaching about and discussing fair use. Fair use is a limitation and exception within copyright law, which when applied properly, allows teachers and students to use copyrighted material on a limited basis for educational purposes. For a fun introduction to fair use, visit YouTube and view this video, “A Fair(y) Use Tale:” http://bit.ly/3JhZue.
     Copyright, however, has taken on a new form since 2001. That’s when CreativeCommons.org, in conjunction with the Center for Public Domain, created the Creative Commons license. How is Creative Commons different? It allows creators to preemptively give permission to other users to use their content with or without restrictions. Creative Commons evolved out of our new “participatory culture,” in which mash-ups, parody, and mixed-media have become common ways in which copyrighted materials have been borrowed and reused. Creative Commons gives creators more freedom to share their work with others. For more on Creative Commons, see page 2.

Collaboration and Creativity
Collaboration in this context refers to collaboration between students. We live in a collaborative culture in which information is exchanged within the blink of an eye, and school librarians are familiar with technology tools that allow students to collaborate and create new forms of writing, art, and music. Tools such as GoogleDocs and wikis allow students to work together online. Find out more on these tools, see page 2.
     School librarians can help with students’ creativity as well, by suggesting alternate forms of project outputs for curriculum assignments. For example, for a history report, a school librarian may suggest to teachers that students create an online interactive poster instead of making a cardboard one. For another assignment, students might be assigned to create a digital video instead of a slide show. Using online technologies and Web 2.0 tools can assist and transform how creativity is applied.

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The Link to Creative Commons

CreativeCommons.org was created in 2001 as a way to provide creators with the power to control the ways in which they share their work with others.
     For example, say you are a photographer. You take photographs and post them on Flickr (www.flickr.com). You want others to be able to use your photographs, but not alter them, as long as they give you the credit for the photographs. Creative Commons has a license you can attach to your photos to specify that.
     Say, however, that you are a musician who writes and records your own music. You want to allow others to not only use your music, but also alter it if they choose, as long as you receive credit for the original version. CC has a license for that too.
     There are approximately 6 levels of license, and each license comes with HTML code you can insert onto a Web site to attach credit. Check out The School Library Link’s Creative Commons license at the bottom of our Web site, www.theschoollibrarylink.com. Our license allows users to copy, transmit, and reproduce this newsletter, as long as they give attribution and use it for noncommerical purposes. In education, students can use the freedoms of Creative Commons to create their own licenses to share their work with others, as well as use others’ works to create something new!

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 Technology and Media Tools that Utilize the Three C's

GoogleDocs
Google has a collection of online word processing, presentation, and spreadsheet tools that you can use for free. GoogleDocs allows collaboration, because you can share documents with anyone with an email address. Users can even work on the same document at the same time from different computers. (www.google.com/docs)

Animoto
Animoto is a tool that allows users to create videos combining still images and music. A great perk to Animoto is that in addition to uploading your own photos and images, you can use copyright-free music (as well as images and video) directly from the site for use in your video. The music is available for use with permission by the artists looking to promote themselves.
(www.animoto.com)

VoiceThread
VoiceThread is a tool with which you can create interactgive presentations combining still images and your voice. Because it is online, you can work collaboratively with others to create a VoiceThread, or you can use the interactive features whereby others can contribute their comments to your VoiceThread conversations. (www.voicethread.com)

Wikis
Wikis are collaborative Web sites. Users can each contribute their own content and edit each other’s content. Some wikis allow anyone to contribute, while others only allow members to contribute. One of the most well-known wikis is Wikipedia.com.