May 2011: The School Library Link to Lifelong Reading
Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 2:04PM 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.
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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!
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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.
