Literacy expert Sharon Callen believes classroom libraries are incredibly important for literacy development in children.

Why?

Classroom libraries represent for many children the experiences that they will have with books - literature and informational - across a year of their school life. We should want to make it rich, be a collection that is enticing and accessible, and an entry point for every child into a rich and glorious world of reading, thinking, experiences and discussions. It should represent a collection of some of the best picture books to read aloud because they have features that entice children to want the books  to be read over and over again - rich language with rhythm, rhyme and repetition and interesting illustrations. 

The books must also be entertaining to read or to listen to. They must introduce students to some of the best children’s authors and illustrators from Australia and overseas, and be read over and over again because they become favourites. 

Children will eventually join in while being read to. This is the beginning of their independent reading.

Children should have opportunities every day to request favourites, have them read multiple times, so that children will soon be reading them independently.

What kind of reading materials?

• Lots of nursery rhymes
• Texts that support children's functioning and allow them to be successful are those which not only fulfil expectations and allow them to confirm their understanding about reading, but also provide the kind of challenges that stretch the boundaries of children's current competence

Children’s expectations

• That the text makes sense because it connects logically and has 'unity of meaning'
• That the text uses natural language which retains the richness and variety of cues with which the children are familiar in speech
• That the text layout and print styles and size are reasonably consistent within the text
• That the topic, subject matter, concepts on which the text is based are related to the child's experiences

Therefore classroom libraries are developed over the course of a year,  based on the children we are working with.

Most useful books for the library

How do we know which are the most useful to have in our classroom collections? 

Share the categories you can look for in your own classroom library, and talk with students about how the structure of the story helps them as a reader. 

Once you think of these as categories, you will soon find books that fit within these categories. These can be:

• Repetitive
• Cumulative
• Familiar cultural
• Chronological
• Problem-centred - good, ripping yarns!
• Rhyme-rhythm scheme
• Nursery rhymes and songs
• Big Books
• Chapter Books - for those ready to move on and for read aloud.
• Information books
• Plays
• Fairy Tales
• Books for 2 voices
• Younger Novels
• Information books connected to discovery, inquiry, units of inquiry
• Children’s own publications
• Family Stories, Animal stories,
• Author study: Julia Donaldson, Pamela Allen, Lynley Dodd, Mem Fox, Pat Hutchins, Janet and Allan Allburg, Eric Carle,.
• Children’s own collections of poems added to throughout the year, coming from read alouds, copies of class made stories, etc. Year 1 example. Everything created as a class, became a copy for children.

Maximising the power of the classroom library

• How do we get them going in the classroom?
• How do we develop our 3 selves as a reader? (Self directed, self motivated, self regulated)

This is an essential, and integrated part of the literacy toolkit for teachers and students. We teach through texts in the classroom library, and kids have daily access to choosing and using. Each child should also begin their own collection of texts with which they can do the work. Teachers should record the books children practice and read.

Teachers, as enabling adults, can create conditions that impact on the successful development of readers who learn to self-regulate and self-improve, develop their understanding about reading and how to use the information available to them through the cueing systems.

• Listening to Stories, as many of these as you can - 2 to 3 a day.
• Shared Book Experience - a store of these used daily, returned to often, available for free choice activity time, including books made by the class.
• Children dictating their own stories - building a collection of books children can read for themselves - into the book box/bag.
• Children writing their own stories and making their own books - alphabet books, pattern books - into the book box/bag.
• Frequent reading practice - with the books in their book box/bag, and books they have been matched to.

Responding to stories

Asking self questions, doing the thinking and the noticing.

Make personal evaluations by asking themselves questions such as:

• What I liked about this story ...
• What I didn't like about this story ...
• What puzzled me, what I am wondering ...
• Why did ... happen?
• What would happen if ...?

Important questions to help children figure out how texts work.

• What patterns I noticed in this story ...
• What ideas I noticed ...
• New discoveries I made ...
• What other stories have a pattern like this story?

Make class big books.

• Same story, illustrated by class
• Innovations on the story, written collectively by the class
• Innovations on the text, each child/pair contributing a sentence, verse, etc.

Write themselves.

• Retelling the story
• Using the same characters or setting or patterns or problem or concept or sentence patterns, innovations

Perform or retell in a different medium.

• Dramatising part or the whole story - puppets, acting, plays
• Drawing, painting, sculpting, story freeze

Show reactions as they read/listen

• Laughing, crying, arguing, deciding not to read on

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The Teacher’s Tool Kit For Literacy is the free podcast for motivated teachers and school leaders who want the latest tips, tricks and tools to inspire their students and school community in literacy learning. 

Hear from literacy expert and founder of Cue Learning, Sharon Callen, and special guests.

At Cue Learning, our literacy specialists draw on over 30 years of teaching and international consulting experience to deliver world-class learning solutions. We equip, empower and support teachers to become their authentic selves. 

To find out about upcoming webinars, and about how Cue can help you and your school, visit the Cue Learning website http://www.cuelearning.com.au/.

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